Week 2 - Epidemiology Principles, Methods, and Applications

Question 1

What are the 5 core sciences of public health

Answer 1

Prevention effectiveness, epidemiology, laboratory, informatics, and surveillance

Question 1

What is epidemiology

Answer 1

The study of distribution and determinants of health-related phenomena inhuman populations and the application of this study to control health problems

Question 2

What are the 4 purposes of epidemiology

Answer 2

1. Discover the agent, host, and environmental factors that affect heath
2. Determine relative important of causes of illness, disability, and death
3. Identify those segments of the population that have the greatest risk from specific causes of ill health
4. Evaluate the effectiveness of health programs and services in improving population health

Question 3

What is an epidemic or outbreak

Answer 3

Higher occurrence of disease in given time and place than what is expected

Question 4

What is a cluster

Answer 4

A group of cases in specific time and place that might be more than expected

Question 5

What is endemic

Answer 5

Disease or condition present among a population at all times

Question 6

What is a pandemic

Answer 6

A disease or condition that spreads across regions

Question 7

What is rate

Answer 7

Number of cases occurring during a scientific period; always dependent on the size of the population during that period

Question 8

What 3 patterns of disease make up distribution

Answer 8

Person, place, and time

Question 9

What is another word for determinants

Answer 9

Exposures

Question 10

What is morbidity

Answer 10

Illness due to a specific disease or health condition

Question 11

What is mortality

Answer 11

Deaths from various causes

Question 12

What are the 7 key activities of epidemiology

Answer 12

1. Meticulous description
2. Comparison of groups
3. Investigation
4. Interpretation
5. Understanding the limitations of data and the sources of bias in observations
6. Drawing causal inferences
7. Creating and evaluating interventions

Question 13

What are the 4 characteristics of routinely available data

Answer 13

Collected, analyzed, presented to assess populations health or patterns of disease, and used to observe and describe

Question 14

What are the 5 values of routine data

Answer 14

Readily available, low cost, useful to identify hypothesis, useful for initial assessment, and provides baseline data on expected levels of health/disease

Question 15

What are 4 limitations of routine data

Answer 15

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

Question 16

What are 4 sources of routinely available data

Answer 16

Demographic data, mortality data, morbidity data, and health facilities usage data

Question 17

What is the main source of demographic data

Answer 17

Census data - informs legislation and diplomacy and helps determine allocation of resources

Question 18

What are kinds of mortality data

Answer 18

Civil registration and vital statistics/birth death and marriage records - allow for international comparison of patterns of fertility and mortality

Question 19

What is morbidity data

Answer 19

Data on occurrence of disease and disability

Question 20

What 4 places can be used to collect morbidity data

Answer 20

Hospital databases, primary care records, case or disease registers, and official household and population surveys

Question 21

What 7 variables are able to be captured using routine data

Answer 21

Height, weight, BMI, smoking status, cholesterol, blood pressure, and vaccination coverage

Question 22

What are the 3 characteristics of public health surveillance

Answer 22

Systematic collection of data about occurrence of specific diseases, analysis and interpretation of these data, and dissemination of disease-related information

Question 23

What are the 2 measures of morbidity

Answer 23

Incidence and prevalence

Question 24

What is incidence

Answer 24

A measure of the probability of occurrence of a given medical condition within specified period of time

Question 25

What is prevalence

Answer 25

The portion of a particular population found to be affected by a medical condition over a period of time

Question 26

What are the 3 measures of mortality

Answer 26

Crude death rate, specific mortality rate, and case fatality rate

Question 27

What is case fatality rate

Answer 27

The proportion of people who, having developed a disease, die from it

Question 28

What is specific mortality rate

Answer 28

The mortality rate of a specific subgroup of the population (e.g. people of a certain age)

Question 29

What is healthy life expectancy

Answer 29

The number of years an individual can expect to live in good health

Question 30

What is disability free life expectancy

Answer 30

The number of years that an individual can expect to live without disability

Question 31

What is unique about years lived with disability when measuring healthy and unhealthy aging

Answer 31

Takes into account number of years and severity of the disability

Question 32

What are disability adjusted life years

Answer 32

Measures the combined effect of premature death (years of life lost) and disability

Question 33

What is descriptive epidemiology

Answer 33

Examine and describes disease and health patterns in relation to person, place, and time

Question 34

What are the 2 main purposes of epidemiological studies

Answer 34

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

Question 35

What are cross sectional studies

Answer 35

Prevalence studies (population surveys) that describe populations at a point in time

Question 36

What are the 5 characteristics of cross sectional studies

Answer 36

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

Question 37

What kinds of sampling can be done in cross sectional studies

Answer 37

Simple random, systematic random, and stratified random

Question 38

What are cohort studies

Answer 38

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

Question 39

What are case-control studies

Answer 39

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

Question 40

What are the benefits of case-control studies

Answer 40

Faster and cheaper than cohort studies and useful when investigating rare diseases

Question 41

What is association

Answer 41

Tells you whether or not two variables are related

Question 42

What is absolute risk

Answer 42

An individuals risk of developing the disease over a time period

Question 43

What is attributable risk

Answer 43

Measure of prevalence of a condition or disease (Fraction of people who develop disease/condition that have been exposed)

Question 44

What is population attributable risk

Answer 44

Measure of the extent to which the disease that occurs in the who population is due, or attributable, to the risk factor

Question 45

What are confounding variables

Answer 45

Describes the situation in which an association between to variables is observed, but a third factor is related to both

Question 46

What are randomized control trials

Answer 46

Experimental design to analyze impact of a planned action

Question 47

What is blinding

Answer 47

Maintaining the lack of knowledge of which group a participant belongs to

Question 48

What are the 7 principles of applied epidemiology

Answer 48

1. Study history and health of a population 2. Diagnose health of a community and the condition of people 3. Estimate from group experience the individual risks and ways to avoid them 4. Identify syndromes 5. Complete clinical picture of chronic diseases and describe their natural history 6. Search for causes 7. Study working of health services