study Flashcards
What does the word distribution mean in the modern definition of Epidemiology?
Frequency - not only just number but relationship to the size of the population.
Pattern - time, place, and person
What was the epidemiologic shift?
Shift from high morbidity and mortality (transmissible disease) to low morbidity and mortality (chronic disease).
What does the word study mean in the modern definition of Epidemiology?
The basic science behind public health and many medical disciplines, is quantitative and based on the application of statistics and research methodologies.
What does the word determinants mean in the modern definition of Epidemiology?
Search for causes or factor that influence risk or probability of disease. How and why of disease.
What does the word application mean in the modern definition of Epidemiology?
Science and art, propose appropriate, practical, and acceptable interventions.
What are the 5 objectives of epidemiology?
- Identify the etiology or cause of a condition.
- Determine the extent of a condition.
- Study the progression of a condition.
- Evaluate preventive and therapeutic measures for a condition.
- Develop public health policy.
What is primary prevention?
Stop the disease before it develops. Vaccine, check up at the doctor.
What is secondary prevention?
Early diagnosis, before the person start experience symptoms. Screening, mammogram.
What is tertiary prevention?
Identify health condition, having symptoms, diagnosis, treatment, rehabilitation.
What is quaternary prevention?
Prevention of overmedication. Prescribing antibiotics for viral infection. Evidence research based, and mediate based medicine.
What is descriptive epidemiological approach?
Generates hypothesis
Disease distribution in a population.
Person, place, time.
Cross-sectional studies.
What is analytical epidemiological approach?
Test hypothesis.
Test specific cause and effect relationship.
Exposure, outcome.
Case-control, cohort and experimental studies.
Who was Hippocrates?
Father of medicine, first epidemiologist.
Who was John Graunt?
Founder of modern statistics. Founded science of demography.
Who was Edward Jenner?
Father of immunology. First vaccine developer.
Who was Ignaz Semmelweis?
Observation of practice between two different clinics practices, which lead to hypothesis testing.
Who was John Snow?
Father of modern epidemiology.
What is spurious association?
False association (correlation). Result of sampling error or bias. We collect data for things we think are related but aren’t in real world.
What is a non-causal association?
There is a relationship between 2 variables, but the relationship is caused by a third variable.
What is a cofounder association?
An unobserved variable that correlates with both the exposure and the outcome variable.
What is a causal relationship?
When one variable causes a change in another variable. Real relationships, not accounted by other variables. (the longer you run the more calories you burn).
What does the word necessary mean?
The outcome/disease can never happen without the cause/exposure being present.
What does sufficient mean?
Every time the cause/exposure is present the outcome/disease will follow.
What are hill’s causal criteria? (9)
- Temporal relationship.
- Strength of the association.
- Dose-response relationship.
- Replication of findings.
- Biological plausibility.
- Consideration of alternate explanation.
- Cessation of exposure.
- Consistency with other knowledge.
- Specificity of the association.
What is temporal relationship?
For an exposure to be a cause of an outcome, it must precede the outcome.
What is strength of the association?
The stronger the mathematical association the more likely a causal relationship.
what is dose-response relationship?
increased exposure leads to a greater frequency of the outcome. Vice Versa.
What is replication of the findings?
When other investigators studying the same thing in different populations, at different times, in different locations, using different methodologies, find the same thing.
what is biologic plausbility?
Is the association credible, given understanding of natural history of disease or possible pathogenic mechanisms.
what is consideration of alternate explanation?
What other possible explanations could explain the association?
what is cessation of exposure?
If we stop exposure to the factor, we would expect to see a decline in risk of the disease.