Lecture 2: Epidemiology Flashcards
Epidemiology
study of the distribution of disease & determination of disease frequency in populations
“cause of disease”
goal of epidemiology
control health problems & increase health at population level
operationally
counting causes of mortality/morbidity (variables)
ID factors that are causes & potentially modifiable
guiding interventions to improve public health
basic assumptions of epidemiology
- does NOT occur at random
- casual factors can be ID
- can lead to preventative intervention
concerns of epidemiology
- exposure (chemical, educational, physical)
- outcomes (disease, cure, better quality of life)
both must be accurately measured & understand what is represented
past dental epidemiology & oral health
- fluoride in water
- fluoride in toothpaste (1950)
- smoking = risk for oral cancer
endemic
usual occurrence in population
epidemic
meaningful increase in occurrence in population
pandemic
increase in large region/worldwide
independent variable
exposure of interest
dependent variable
outcome of interest
steps of reasoning
- suspicion of exposure-disease relationship
- hypothesis formation
- test of hypothesis
- rule out chance, bias, confounding
cause
event/outcome that proceeds the disease that would not have occurred otherwise
association
an identifiable relation between an exposure and a disease
criteria for assessing causality
- strength of relationship
- dose-response relationship
- temporal sequence
- biologically credible (depends on current state of knowledge)
- consistent w/ other studies
epidemiological approach
- ID disease
- ID exposure/risk factors
- stats of correlation
- hold constants
- infer casual association
- recommended intervention
4 types of quantification
- nominal
- ordinal
- interval
- ratio
nominal scale
uses name
ordinal scale
order based on severity
interval scale
mathematic order
NO true 0
ratio scale
mathematic order
TRUE 0
prevalence proportion
AT A SPECIFIC TIME
# of cases/ # people in population
NOT A RATE
incidence
new cases/ population @ risk
is a rate
prevelence
cases infected @ one time
incident
new cases of infected population over time
