Population Health Research Flashcards
define epidemiology?
the study of distribution or determinants in health related states or events in specified population
what is a health related state?
any state of health that can happen to a population - it is an outcome
how can you measure distribution?
as the frequency using count, rate or risk - descriptive epidemiology
what is a determinant?
anything that can cause an outcome - chemical, biological, physical, social, behavioural, cultural - analytical epidemiology
what is a prospective study?
start with a cohort with or without the exposure and follow up until disease
what is science based on?
science is based on evidence and not belief - based on research which allows us to interrogate the evidence
what is the point of testing a hypothesis?
to prove the weight of evidence - can never prove, only reject
what is the process of hypothesis testing?
observations and then propose a hypothesis. you then test the hypothesis and reject or do not reject, modify and then retest
what is humourism?
ill health that is caused by imbalances in four fundamental characteristics - temperament, climate, seasons and alchemic element
what is EBM?
evidence based medicine. David Sackett in 1996 said: the conscientious, explicit and judicious use of current best evidence in making decisions about the care of individual patients
what is ebm comprised of?
individual clinical expertise, best available external clinical evidence and patient values and expectations
what are the five As?
ask, access, appraise, apply, assess
what are probabilistic events?
these are events where the exposure does not necessarily lead to the outcome - it is useless to observe individual people with this - work with groups, and use probability to describe, predict and make causal inferences
what is a census?
when the sample is the same as the total population, if the study population is the total population then it is a population based study
what is a case report?
detailed report of the medical course of an individual patient
what is a case series?
advanced case report - sample of cases with same disease - can get description, natural history and prognosis and treatment methods
what is a register based study?
special type of case series. Count and collect information on people who are diagnosed and can then infer the occurrence per population
what are the divisions of a predictive or inferential study?
from predictive it splits into observational or experimental.Experimental comprises pre-post studies, quasi experiments, RCTs and randomised cross over trials. Observational can be a case control, natural experiment or case-crossover study. It also has a branch for case series, register based, cross-sectional, cohort and ecological
other than the observational descriptive studies, what is the other type of descriptive studies?
case reports
what is a cross sectional study?
study of a group of people or population at a single point in time.
what is a cohort study?
it is a study that examines groups of people over time - longitudinal on cohort with cross section at time intervals
what is an ecological study?
studies of risk modifying factors on health or other outcomes on populations - these populations are defined geographically or temporally - factors and outcomes are averaged and compared
how can hypotheses be generated?
individual level, temporal characteristics, or area level
what are the benefits of ecological studies?
they are cheap and easy to perform with publicly available data, can make large scale comparisons and are useful for generating hypotheses
what are the disadvantages of ecological studies?
cannot make causal inference, ecological fallacy if they are applied at an individual level and it is likely that you will miss some members meaning there is a potential for bias
what are health outcomes?
they are individually measured outcomes combined to create population level data
what does the hypothesis need to be?
valid - does the outcome measure what is intended?
responsive - can the outcome detect changes?
reliable - is the measurement consistent?
what does a research question need to be?
plausible - likely link
falsifiable - can be rejected using scientific methods
directional - stating the proposed direction
precise - detailed
