RESS Flashcards

1
Q

Define health equity:

A

Differences in the quality of health and healthcare across different populations.

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2
Q

Define health inequality:

A

Socio-economic differences in health outcome.

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3
Q

What is the epidemiological triad?

A

Time.
Person.
Place.

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4
Q

Describe the scientific method:

A

Observation.
Proposal of a hypothesis.
Testing of the hypothesis.
Rejected or not rejected.

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5
Q

Define a fact:

A

A statement confirmed to such a degree that disagreement would be perverse.

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6
Q

Define a scientific law:

A

Distillations of repeated observations or facts.

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7
Q

What is a hypothesis?

A

A testable statement that describes an observation.

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8
Q

What is the null hypothesis?

A

The hypothesis which you falsify. Assumes no effect.

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9
Q

What is the alternative hypothesis?

A

The opposite of the null hypothesis.

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10
Q

What are the three requirements of a health outcome?

A

Valid.
Reliable.
Responsive.

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11
Q

What do PROMs measure?

A

A patients health related quality of life.

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12
Q

What are the utility values given to a healthy and to a dead individual?

A

1: healthy.
0: dead.

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13
Q

How are QALYs calculated?

A

Utility value x survival data.

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14
Q

Which symbol is used to truncate words in literature searching?

A

*

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15
Q

Which symbol is used to signify a variable character in literature searching?

A

#

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16
Q

Which symbol is used to search for single character/no character in the middle of a word?
What is this commonly used for?

A

?

American/English variants.

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17
Q

In literature searching, what does separating your words with ADJ do?

A

Searches for both terms next to each other in the order typed.

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18
Q

In literature searching, what does separating your words with ADJ1 do?

A

Searches for both terms in either order.

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19
Q

In literature searching, what does separating your words with ADJn do?

A

Searches for both terms with up to (n-1) words between them.

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20
Q

Define incidence rate:

A

New cases arising in a period of time.

Number of new cases in a period/number at risk in population in a period.

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21
Q

How is the incidence calculation changed when the number at risk changes over time?

A

Number of new cases/Total person-time at risk.

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22
Q

What is prevalence?

A

How many people have the disease at a certain time.

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23
Q

Do epidemiologists prefer incidence or prevalence for etiological research?

A

Incidence.

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24
Q

Define case fatality rate:

A

Number of people who die from disease in period/Number of people with disease in period.

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25
Q

Define mortality rate:

A

Number of people who die from disease in period/Number of people who die in period.

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26
Q

How are data sets adjusted?

A

Calculating stratum specific rates and combining it with a weighted average.

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27
Q

What is categorical data?

A

Can only be divided into into distinct categories.

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28
Q

Distinguish between the two types of categorical data:

A

Nominal: no natural ordering (M vs F)
Ordinal: ordering present. (low, medium, high).

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29
Q

Differentiate between the two types of numerical data:

A

Discrete: only takes whole values.
Continuous: can take any value.

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30
Q

What is standard deviation a measure of?

A

Spread.

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31
Q

How is risk calculated?

A

Number of new cases/number at risk.

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32
Q

What is the risk ratio a measure of?

A

Relative risk.

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33
Q

How is risk ratio calculated?

A

(Exposed cases/All exposed). OVER (Unexposed cases/All unexposed).

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34
Q

How are the odds of an event calculated?

A

Probability of event/ probability event doesn’t occur.

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35
Q

Which type of study uses odds ratios?

A

Case-control study.

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36
Q

How is an odds ratio calculated?

A

(Exposed casesUnexposed controls). OVER (Unexposed casesExposed controls).

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37
Q

When are risk ratios used?

A

Cohort studies only.

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38
Q

When are the odds ratio and risk ratio similar?

A

Very rare diseases.

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39
Q

Which values of relative risk are associated with protective and harmful effects?

A

less than 1 is protective
1 is no effect
more than 1 is harmful

40
Q

What does the highest point on a normal distribution curve represent?

A

Mean, mode and median.

41
Q

What is the mean and s.d. of the standard normal distribution?

A

Mean: 1.

S.d: 0.

42
Q

What percentage of values lie with 1 s.d. of the mean in the normal distribution?

A

68.2%.

43
Q

What percentage of values lie with 2 s.d. of the mean in the normal distribution?

A

95.4%.

44
Q

What percentage of values lie with 3 s.d. of the mean in the normal distribution?

A

99.7%.

45
Q

What is standard error?

A

The spread of the sample means.

46
Q

What is a confidence interval?

A

Range of values in which the true population mean is likely to lie.

47
Q

When can the standard normal distribution be used to calculate confidence intervals?

A

When the s.d. of the population is known. OR.

When the sample is >200.

48
Q

What is used to calculate confidence intervals when the sample size is below 200?

A

Student’s t distribution.

49
Q

How are degrees of freedom calculated?

A

Sample size - 1.

50
Q

Which confidence interval is most often used?

A

95%.

51
Q

What is assumed when using a t statistic? (2).

A

Normal distribution.

Independant samples.

52
Q

When is a statistically significant effect concluded?

A

Confidence interval is on one side of the mean.

P value is less than 0.05.

53
Q

What is the p value?

A

Probability of obtaining the results of a test given that the null hypothesis (no effect) is true.

54
Q

What is the Pearson Correlation Coefficient?

A

Measure of correlation between two numeric variables.

55
Q

What does the value of the Pearson correlation coefficient lie between?
What is the boundary for a good correlation?

A

1 and -1.

0.7.

56
Q

When is the Spearman rank correlation coefficient used? (3).

A

Data not normally distributed.
One or both variables are ordinal.
Small sample size.

57
Q

What are the assumptions when using linear regression? (2).

A

Approx linear relationship.

Residuals must be normally distributed.

58
Q

When is a chi-squared test used?

A

Testing an association between two categorical variables.

59
Q

What are the conditions for use of a Chi squared test? (2).

A

Expected values should be more than 1.

3/4 cells should have expected value more than 5.

60
Q

Which correction is used for Chi squared tests with small sample sizes?

A

Yates correction.

61
Q

What is primary prevention?

A

Preventing future occurrence by removing cause.

62
Q

What is secondary prevention?

A

Prevention by screening/ detection/ treatment.

63
Q

What is tertiary prevention?

A

Prevention by treating clinical cases.

64
Q

What is sensitivity?

Calculation?

A

How well a test detects a condition.

True positives over all people with disease.

65
Q

What is specificity?

Calculation?

A

How well a test correctly excludes those without a condition.
True negatives over all people without disease.

66
Q

What is positive predictive value?

Calculation?

A

Probability someone has condition if they test positive.

True positives over all positive tests.

67
Q

What is negative predictive value?

A

Probability someone doesn’t have a condition if they test negative.
True negatives over all negative tests.

68
Q

What is the accuracy of a screening test?

A

Proportion of all the tests that have given the correct result.

69
Q

What is a ‘failure’ in survival data?

A

Leaving the study.

70
Q

What is ‘censoring’ in survival data?

A

Leaving the study before the event occurs.

71
Q

Differentiate between left and right censoring in survival datasets:

A

Right: people did not reach failure before end of the study.
Left: not certain what happened before entering study (e.g. already have disease).

72
Q

In survival data, what is the ‘survival function’?

A

Chance of survival until a certain time.

73
Q

In survival data, what is the ‘hazard function’?

A

Chances of instantaneous failure at any one time.

74
Q

What is a Log-rank test used for?

A

Comparing the survival functions between two groups.

75
Q

How is the average and spread of normally distributed data reported?

A

Mean.

Standard deviation.

76
Q

How is the average and spread of skewed data reported?

A

Median.

Interquartile range.

77
Q

How do you check on the distribution of numerical data?

A

Histogram.

78
Q

What does an adjusted R squared value tell you?

A

What % of the variability in the data can be explained by the model.

79
Q

What does a narrow confidence interval tell you?

A

Good precision.

80
Q

What is opportunity cost?

A

Value of benefit lost from the option(s) you didn’t choose.

81
Q

Differentiate between technical and allocative efficiency:

A

Tech: meeting objective at least cost.
All: production that matches consumer demand.

82
Q

What is marginal analysis?

A

Compares the benefits and costs of taking the next step.

Marginal cost and benefit

83
Q

What is equity?

A

Fairness of the distribution of the cost and benefits.

84
Q

What outcome is used to measure cost benefit?

A

Monetary value.

85
Q

What type of outcome is used to measure cost effectiveness?
What does it address?
Problems?

A

Natural units.
Technical efficiency.
Interventions with different outcomes can’t be compared.

86
Q

What outcome is used to measure cost utility?

A

QALYs

87
Q

What are the four possible conclusions of a NICE technology appraisal?

A

Recommended.
Optimised (smaller subset).
Only in research.
Not recommended.

88
Q

What is the NICE threshold for cost effectiveness?

A

£20,000-£30,000

89
Q

Where two treatments are compared, if A costs less and is better than B, what is A said to be?

A

Dominant.

90
Q

Differentiate between multi-way and probabilistic sensitivity analysis:

A

Multi-way: vary more than one variable at a time.

Probabilistic: vary all parameters simultaneously based on probability decisions.

91
Q

What does the cost effectiveness acceptability curve represent?

A

The probability that the Incremental Cost Effectiveness Ratio is at or below any given Maximum Willingness to pay threshold.

92
Q

What are the 3 secondary uses of electronic health records?

A

Developing improvement programme.
Clinical governance.
Epidemiological research.

93
Q

What are the problems with big data in health?

A
Quality.
Size.
Data linkage (coding).
Confidentiality + security.
Consent.
94
Q

What is a health related state? (Outcome or exposure)

A

Outcome

95
Q

What is validity?

A

Wether data accurate measures what it is meant to measure.

96
Q

What is reliability?

A

Wether it will give the same result on retesting.

97
Q

What does the p value tell you?

A

Give the test that you did, how likely is it that you saw those results by chance?