Pharmacoepidemiology Flashcards
What is pharmacoepidemiology?
Study of therapeutic effects, risk, and use of drugs in populations which applies epidemiological methods and reasoning
Merger of clinical pharmacology and epidemiology
What two things does pharmacoepidemiology concern itself with?
The benefits of alleviating the morbidity and mortality associated with disease through drugs
Harms associated with unintended adverse drug reactions by the same drugs which provided the benefits
What kind of data is used in pharmacoepidemiology?
observational data
It’s concerned with the real-life efficacy and safety of drugs
What does effectiveness refer to in pharmacoepidemiology?
Whether or not a drug in fact achieves its desired effect in the real world
What are the limitations of pre-marketing trials?
Short duration
small sample size
narrowly defined population
Limited comparison groups
What role does pharmacoepidemiology have in QUM?
Efficacy of therapy
Assessment of risk: benefit of the therapy
Patterns of drug utilisation
Cost-effectiveness of specific drug/therapy (pharmacoeconomics)
What questions about QUM are addressed by pharmacoepidemiology?
How much of drug is being used?
Who takes drug?
What affects the use of drug?
How are drug’s beneficial effect determined?
How are adverse reactions and ADRs studied and measured?
Is too much of drug being used?
In the public health model, what is the host?
the recipient of the causative agent of a disease or health problem
In the public health model, what is the agent?
cause of disease, also called contagion in case of transmissible/infectious disease
Risk factors considered in this category when considering non-communicable disease
In the public health model, what is the environment?
the conditions affecting survival and transmission of causative agent
What does it mean when a disease is endemic?
A characteristic of a particular population
Disease is present at all times but at low frequency (e.g. chicken pox)
What is an epidemic?
Sudden severe outbreak within a region or a group
e.g. ebola virus in north-west africa or AIDs in IV drug users
What is a pandemic?
When an epidemic becomes widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or global spread
Describe incidence
measure of new cases of disease over a particular time period
Describe cumulative incidence
number of new cases within a specific time period divided by size of the pop initially at risk
