Week 2 - Epidemiology Principles, Methods, and Applications Flashcards
What are the 5 core sciences of public health
Prevention effectiveness, epidemiology, laboratory, informatics, and surveillance
What is epidemiology
The study of distribution and determinants of health-related phenomena inhuman populations and the application of this study to control health problems
What are the 4 purposes of epidemiology
- Discover the agent, host, and environmental factors that affect heath
- Determine relative important of causes of illness, disability, and death
- Identify those segments of the population that have the greatest risk from specific causes of ill health
- Evaluate the effectiveness of health programs and services in improving population health
What is an epidemic or outbreak
Higher occurrence of disease in given time and place than what is expected
What is a cluster
A group of cases in specific time and place that might be more than expected
What is endemic
Disease or condition present among a population at all times
What is a pandemic
A disease or condition that spreads across regions
What is rate
Number of cases occurring during a scientific period; always dependent on the size of the population during that period
What 3 patterns of disease make up distribution
Person, place, and time
What is another word for determinants
Exposures
What is morbidity
Illness due to a specific disease or health condition
What is mortality
Deaths from various causes
What are the 7 key activities of epidemiology
- Meticulous description
- Comparison of groups
- Investigation
- Interpretation
- Understanding the limitations of data and the sources of bias in observations
- Drawing causal inferences
- Creating and evaluating interventions
What are the 4 characteristics of routinely available data
Collected, analyzed, presented to assess populations health or patterns of disease, and used to observe and describe
What are the 5 values of routine data
Readily available, low cost, useful to identify hypothesis, useful for initial assessment, and provides baseline data on expected levels of health/disease
What are 4 limitations of routine data
Not always up-to-date, lack of completeness (except census), some variables of internets may not be collected, and occasionally subject to political influences and manipulation
What are 4 sources of routinely available data
Demographic data, mortality data, morbidity data, and health facilities usage data
What is the main source of demographic data
Census data - informs legislation and diplomacy and helps determine allocation of resources
What are kinds of mortality data
Civil registration and vital statistics/birth death and marriage records - allow for international comparison of patterns of fertility and mortality
What is morbidity data
Data on occurrence of disease and disability
What 4 places can be used to collect morbidity data
Hospital databases, primary care records, case or disease registers, and official household and population surveys
What 7 variables are able to be captured using routine data
Height, weight, BMI, smoking status, cholesterol, blood pressure, and vaccination coverage
What are the 3 characteristics of public health surveillance
Systematic collection of data about occurrence of specific diseases, analysis and interpretation of these data, and dissemination of disease-related information
What are the 2 measures of morbidity
Incidence and prevalence
What is incidence
A measure of the probability of occurrence of a given medical condition within specified period of time
What is prevalence
The portion of a particular population found to be affected by a medical condition over a period of time
What are the 3 measures of mortality
Crude death rate, specific mortality rate, and case fatality rate
What is case fatality rate
The proportion of people who, having developed a disease, die from it
What is specific mortality rate
The mortality rate of a specific subgroup of the population (e.g. people of a certain age)
What is healthy life expectancy
The number of years an individual can expect to live in good health
What is disability free life expectancy
The number of years that an individual can expect to live without disability
What is unique about years lived with disability when measuring healthy and unhealthy aging
Takes into account number of years and severity of the disability
What are disability adjusted life years
Measures the combined effect of premature death (years of life lost) and disability
What is descriptive epidemiology
Examine and describes disease and health patterns in relation to person, place, and time
What are the 2 main purposes of epidemiological studies
To establish causes or risk of developing a specific disease and test he ability of particular activities/technologies to stop diseases from developing or slow their progression
What are cross sectional studies
Prevalence studies (population surveys) that describe populations at a point in time
What are the 5 characteristics of cross sectional studies
Study at a single point in time, doesn’t involve manipulation, allows researchers to look at numbers characteristics at once, often used to look at prevailing characteristics in a given population, and can provide information about what’s happening in a current population
What kinds of sampling can be done in cross sectional studies
Simple random, systematic random, and stratified random
What are cohort studies
Study (prospective or retrospective) where a population free of disease is assembled and individuals are categorized according to whether or not they’ve been exposed to risk factors of interest
What are case-control studies
Examines the extent to which people with an established disease (cases) and a comparable group who don’t have disease (controls) have been exposed to a risk factor believed to be responsible for causing disease
What are the benefits of case-control studies
Faster and cheaper than cohort studies and useful when investigating rare diseases
What is association
Tells you whether or not two variables are related
What is absolute risk
An individuals risk of developing the disease over a time period
What is attributable risk
Measure of prevalence of a condition or disease (Fraction of people who develop disease/condition that have been exposed)
What is population attributable risk
Measure of the extent to which the disease that occurs in the who population is due, or attributable, to the risk factor
What are confounding variables
Describes the situation in which an association between to variables is observed, but a third factor is related to both
What are randomized control trials
Experimental design to analyze impact of a planned action
What is blinding
Maintaining the lack of knowledge of which group a participant belongs to
What are the 7 principles of applied epidemiology
- Study history and health of a population
- Diagnose health of a community and the condition of people
- Estimate from group experience the individual risks and ways to avoid them
- Identify syndromes
- Complete clinical picture of chronic diseases and describe their natural history
- Search for causes
- Study working of health services
