Pithua Flashcards
Epidemiology is based on what 2 fundamental assumptions?
- disease does NOT occur at random, rather there are factors/determinants that can increase or decrease the likelihood of disease
- the factors or determinants can be identified by systematic investigation of populations or subgroups within populations
__________ is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease frequency in human/animal populations and the application of this study to control health problems.
epidemiology
when studying human or animal populations, the group of subjects have common …
characteristics
such as: geographic location, age, group membership, breed, parity, housing, production levels, etc.
how do you measure disease frequency?
counting the number of cases of a disease in a population over a specific period of time
What is meant by studying the “distribution” of disease frequency?
how the disease is distributed through the population
Ex: age, sex, socioeconomic status, breed, location, time
_________ are factors that cause some individuals to acquire disease and/or factors that prevent some individuals from getting disease. These are also referred to as “exposures”.
determinants
What is the first step of the epidemiologic approach?
Make observations – suspect that exposure influences disease occurence
What is the second step of the epidemiologic approach?
form specific hypotheses about exposure-disease link
what is the third step of the epidemiologic approach?
perform epidemiologic studies to measure the relationship between exposure and disease
What is the fourth step of the epidemiologic approach?
judge if the association is valid and casual – factor in: evidence, chance, bias, cofounding, limits of study design, strength of study design
what is the fifth/last step of the epidemiologic approach?
evaluate prevention and treatment
What are the 2 criteria for a GOOD hypothesis?
- project expected association between 2 or more measurable variables
- carry clear implications for testing stated relations
__________ are important for advancing epidemiologic research and guiding study design, variable selection, sample selection, data analyses, and interpretation of results.
hypotheses
“Smoking causes cancer” is an example of what type of hypothesis?
fundamental
“People who smoke cigarettes daily have a higher incidence of lung cancer over a 10-year period than people who do not smoke cigarettes” is an example of what type of hypothesis?
operational
T/F: we must know the specific cause of a disease in order to intervene, that is why hypotheses are so important to guide our experiments.
false – we do NOT need to know a specific cause to intervene.
This type of epidemiology is described as:
1. describes patterns of disease
2. monitor public health, evaluate success of disease intervention programs, generate hypotheses about causes of disease, and monitor herd health
3. identify and count cases of disease in populations and conduct simple studies
descriptive epidemiology
This type of epidemiology is described as:
1. search for disease cause and prevention
2. evaluate hypotheses about causes of disease and evaluate success of intervention programs
3. compare groups and systematically determine if there is an association present
analytical/scientific epidemiology
what are the 3 main uses of descriptive epidemiology in veterinary medicine and public health?
- ID problems, trends, and high-risk groups
- planning: where to spend resources
- generate hypotheses for analytical epidemiology
what is the limitation of descriptive epidemiology?
cannot identify cause of disease
what are the 4 components for measuring disease frequency?
- population
- cases of disease (numerator)
- size of population (denominator)
- time
A ______ population is a population whose membership is defined on the basis of some event and membership is permanent (ex. veteran of vietnam war or people born in 1982)
fixed
A ________ population is where membership is defined by being in a state or condition, but membership is transient. (ex. being a student at a certain school, being a parent of a teenager)
dynamic
What are some examples of methods of disease ascertainment?
clinical records
diagnostic tests
disease registries
surveillance programs
self-reports