Module 1: Introduction

Question 1

How does Patten define epidemiology?

Answer 1

The study of the distribution and determinants of disease in populations.

Question 2

How does Gordis define epidemiology?

Answer 2

The study of how disease is distributed in populations and the factors that influence or determine this distribution.

Question 3

If people got diseases at random what would that entail for epidemiology? Why?

Answer 3

There would be no field of epidemiology as we couldn’t measure the distribution of disease.

Question 4

The distribution in epidemiology refers to what?

Answer 4

Who is getting disease.

Question 5

“Determinant” implies _____.

Answer 5

Cause.

Question 6

“Association” is a ‘litter word’ compared to “determinant.” Why is this?

Answer 6

Litter word if something is related but maybe not causal.

Question 7

The term “exposure” is a stand-in for what?

Answer 7

Factor potentially associated with disease.

Question 8

In epidemiology, when we refer to disease what are we talking about?

Answer 8

Sickness and sickness care rather than health.

Question 9

The World Health Organization defined health as what in 1948?

Answer 9

Health is a state of complete physical, mental and social well-being and is not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.

Question 10

How does PHAC define population health?

Answer 10

An approach to health that aims to improve the health of the entire population and to reduce health inequities among population groups.

Question 11

In population health, what does “upstream reasoning” entail?

Answer 11

Poor health outcomes are probabilistically determined by life factors, becoming increasingly more macro-level as you ask “but why?” questions.

Question 12

In population health, when thinking about “cause”, we are examining _____ vs. _____.

Answer 12

Large populations vs. single cases.

Question 13

What are the implications if a determinant is deemed more modifiable?

Answer 13

More interest to government policy.

Question 14

The modifiability of a determinant patterns what?

Answer 14

Inequitable (unfair) difference in health outcomes vs. simple unfortunate luck.

Question 15

In population health, being born with a disability (let’s say Down syndrome) is considered what? Why?

Answer 15

“Bad luck” and not modifiable. Related to maternal age - generally not modifiable, therefore not “unfair” from a population health standpoint.

Question 16

A population can be defined by _____ of a group.

Answer 16

Characteristics (e.g., males).

Question 17

Some think of population as the data generating process. What is an example of this?

Answer 17

Population of NS as the generating process that formed it - e.g., outmigration, mortality, immigration.

Question 18

What are the two population health fundamentals?

Answer 18

Health of whole population (average level). Spread of that outcome (distribution/inequality).

Question 19

Kindig & Stoddart (2003) said: “Population health is the health outcomes of a group of individuals including the distribution… The field includes outcomes, patterns, and policies or interventions that link the two.” Compare this to what a physician does.

Answer 19

Population health not concerned with the specific relationship between exposure and disease in an individual patient.

Question 20

What is the difference between descriptive and analytical epidemiology?

Answer 20

Descriptive: outcomes
Analytical: outcomes and relationship to exposures/policies