Intro to Epidemiology

Question 1

What are the targets of public health? And explain them.

Answer 1

policy, community, organizational, interpersonal, and individual

Question 2

What are the three targets of public health?

Answer 2

Assessment, policy development, and assurance

Question 3

Explain assessment as a core function of public health.

Answer 3

to regularly and systematically collect, assemble, analyze, and make available information on the health of the community, including statistics on health status, community health needs, and epidemiologic and other studies of health problems

Question 4

Explain policy development as a core function of public health.

Answer 4

to serve the public interest in the development of comprehensive public health policies by promoting the use of the scientific knowledge base in decision-making about public health and by leading in developing public health policy

Question 5

Explain assurance as a core function of public health.

Answer 5

to assure their constituents that services necessary to achieve agreed-upon goals are provided, either by encouraging actions by other entities (private or public), by requiring such action through regulation, or by providing services directly

Question 5

What is primary prevention?

Answer 5

strategies, tactics, and procedures that prevent the occurrence of disease in the first place

EX: safe drinking water, vaccinations

Question 5

What is secondary prevention?

Answer 5

strategies, tactics, and procedures, including screening tests, that detect disease as early as possible among seemingly healthy individuals so that disease progress can be arrested

EX: pap smear for cervical cancer, mammography

Question 6

What is tertiary prevention?

Answer 6

strategies, tactics, and procedures, including interventions, that aim to arrest the progress of established disease

EX: chemotherapy for colorectal cancer, stroke rehabilitation program

Question 6

What is epidemiology?

Answer 6

the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to control health problems

Question 7

What are the five important elements of epidemiology?

Answer 7

1) study

2) distribution

3) determinants

4) health-related states or events

5) populations

Question 8

Explain “study” as an element of epidemiology.

Answer 8

surveillance, observation, hypothesis testing, analytic research, experiments

Question 9

Explain “distribution” as an element of epidemiology.

Answer 9

characteristics of persons affected, place, time

Question 10

Explain “determinants” as an element of epidemiology.

Answer 10

physical factors, biological factors, social factors, cultural factors, behavior factors that influence health

Question 11

Explain “health-related states or events” as an element of epidemiology.

Answer 11

diseases, behaviors (e.g. tobacco use), reactions to preventative regimens, provision and use of health services

Question 12

Explain “populations” as an element of epidemiology.

Answer 12

groups of individuals, groups of groups, often defined by person, place, time

Question 13

How is epidemiology a tool?

Answer 13

patterns of disease result from specific causes, and through orderly sequence of reasoning, those disease patterns can be elucidated, then once elucidated, this information can be used to prevent disease and promote health.

Question 14

How is epidemiology a liberal art?

Answer 14

Because epi is useful for taking a first look at a new problem, it is applicable to a broad range of interesting phenomena, using: the scientific method, analogic thinking, deductive reasoning, problem solving within constraints

Question 15

What are the objectives of epidemiology?

Answer 15

1) intervene to reduce morbidity and mortality from a disease

2) determine the extent of disease found in a community

3) study the natural history and prognosis of disease

4) evaluate both existing and newly developed preventive and therapeutic measures and modes of health care delivery

5) provide the foundation for developing public policy regarding disease prevention and health promotion

Question 16

Explain a population-based prevention approach.

Answer 16

A preventative measure is widely applied to an entire population

EX: dietary advice to prevent coronary disease through mass media and other health education approaches

Question 17

Why is epidemiology important to clinical practice?

Answer 17

Practicing medicine is dependent on population data, and population-based concepts and data underlie the critical processes of clinical practice, including diagnosis, prognostication, and selection of therapy. Basically, a physician applies a population-based probability model to the patient on the examining table

Question 18

Who was Ignáz Semmelweis?

Answer 18

Question 19

Who was Edward Jenner?

Answer 19

Question 20

Who was James Lind?

Answer 20