Lecture 2: Descriptive Epi And Measuring Disease Frequency Flashcards
What is an active surveillance system?
Public health officials go into the community to search for new cases.
What is syndromic surveillance system?
Public health officials look for pre-defined symptoms/signs of patients.
What are case definitions and what is the equivalent that physicians use.
What is the disease? What are you looking for?
A set of uniform criteria used to define a disease for public health surveillance.
What is critical for CASE definitions
Carefully and consistently define and execute exactly how we will detect and diagnose people. Including confirmed and probable case definitions.
What is an epidemic?
An occurrence of a disease is higher than normal.
What is an outbreak?
An epidemic in a localized area
What is an endemic
An occurrence of disease that is constantly higher than in other communities.
What is a pandemic?
An epidemic that spreads to other countries. Ex: bird flu
What is an epicurve?
A visual depiction of an epidemic detailing who when and where. It depicts patterns and magnitude of spread.
What is pattern of spread?
The shape of the curve which tells you if it’s common or point source etc
What is the magnitude of impact?
If there is a sentinel case, exposure period, and start stop duration.
How does an epicurve help?
Allows you to form hypothesis about mode of transmission, exposure period, and incubation period.
Explain the common or point source graph
The outbreak is continuous, not repeated, or propagated, no sentinel.
Explain a common or point source graph with a sentinel.
Curve is continuous, not repeated, not propagated but does include an index case.
What is a passive surveillance system?
Relies on healthcare system to follow regulations about required reportable diseases/conditions.
