Module 1 and Workshop 2

Question 1

Epidemic

Answer 1

The occurrence of disease is clearly in excess of normal

Question 2

Pandemic

Answer 2

An epidemic occurring in many countries

Question 3

Endemic

Answer 3

A disease outbreak that is consistently present but limited to a particular region

Question 4

Outbreak

Answer 4

Sudden increase in the number of cases of a disease in a specific area

Question 5

Herd Immunity

Answer 5

When enough people are immune to a disease, reducing its spread and protecting those who aren’t immune

Question 6

Main goal of epidemiology

Answer 6

Measure frequency of health & dis-ease in different populations to find the causes of poor health & how to improve it. Goal of all epidemiological studies is to calculate EGO and CGO

Question 7

Worlds two biggest health issues?

Answer 7

Global Health Inequity and Global Warming

Question 8

Why is Risk Difference more informative than Relative Risk?

Answer 8

RR only gives a ratio of how strong an association is which makes it deceptive and shows little information unlike RD which measures risk change. Also has units

Question 9

Confounding

Answer 9

When the exposure (e.g. high alcohol use) is mixed with another factor (e.g. high solvent use) that is also associated with the Outcome, the study has an ‘bias’ called confounding

Question 10

Objective Measure

Answer 10

An outcome that is not influenced by personal interpretation

Question 11

Subjective Measure

Answer 11

An outcome that is influenced by personal interpretation

Question 12

How do you reduce random error?

Answer 12

Do a bigger sample, bigger the sample the less the chance the sample will be different from the whole population

Question 13

Reverse Causality

Answer 13

when the outcome happens in the opposite manner. You don’t know what came first.

Question 13

Temporality

Answer 13

First the cause then the disease. Essential to establish a causal relation.

Question 14

Strength of Association

Answer 14

Stronger association = more likely to be causal (excluding bias and confounding)

Question 15

Biological Plausibility of Association

Answer 15

Does the association make sense biologically?

Question 16

Reversibility

Answer 16

The demonstration that under controlled conditions, a change in exposure results in a change in the outcome.

Question 17

Biological Gradient (Dose Response)

Answer 17

Incremental change in disease rates in conjunction with corresponding changes in exposure

Question 18

Consistency of Association

Answer 18

Replication of the findings by different investigators, at different times, in different places, with different methods

Question 18

Specificity of Association

Answer 18

A cause leads to a single effect. An effect has a single cause

Question 19

Sufficient cause

Answer 19

A minimum set of conditions - without any one of the components (slices) the disease would not occur. Often several factors contributing to this

Question 20

Component Cause

Answer 20

A factor that contributes towards dis-ease causation, but is not sufficient to cause dis-ease on it’s own.

Question 21

Necessary Cause

Answer 21

A factor (or component cause) that must be present for a specific dis-ease to occur.

Question 22

Probabilistic Causation

Answer 22

A increases the chance of B occurring

Question 22

Deterministic Causation

Answer 22

A causes B

Question 23

Crude Death Rate

Answer 23

Total number of deaths / Total number in population / Time as a unit

Question 24

Age Speficic Death Rate

Answer 24

of people that die in that age group / # of people in that age group

Question 25

Problem with age specific death rates?

Answer 25

Gives us lots of death rates (for different age groups) and doesn’t give a summary measure for the whole population

Question 26

Why use Age Standardisation?

Answer 26

We know age affects the outcome