WEEK 6: DESIGN 1

Question 1

what are the two types of population/clinical health research

Answer 1

descriptive, analytic

Question 2

what is descriptive population/clinical health research

Answer 2

• identify and count cases of disease in populations according to person, place, and time, and conduct simple studies
  Case reports & series
  Cross-sectional study & ecological study (can also be analytic)
  1. To monitor the public’s health
  2. To evaluate the success of intervention programs
  3. To generate hypotheses about causes of disease

Question 3

analytic population/clinical Health Research

Answer 3

Compare group and systematically determine if there is an association
Experimental study
Clinical trial
Community trials
Case-control study
Cohort study
1. To evaluate hypothesis about the causes of disease
2. To evaluate the success of intervention programs

Question 4

6 components of a study

Answer 4

1. population
2. exposure
3. outcome
4. potential cofounders
5. analysis
6. communication of findings

Question 5

what is a source population

Answer 5

the population you are interested in knowing more about

Question 6

study population

Answer 6

the [population you enroll in your study to represent the source population

Question 7

what is generalizability

Answer 7

assuming the association in a study reflects the truth, to whom does it apply?

Question 8

what is case definition

Answer 8

description of the event you are interested in studying; can be disease, defect, injury, event, state
ex. a man with cardiovascular disease defined by ICD codes
- ex. an infant with structural abnormality of the heart identified within 1st week of life

Question 9

target population.

Answer 9

people you want your results to apply to
- ex. everyone living in australia

Question 10

source population or sampling frame

Answer 10

people from whom the population is selection
- ex. everyone on australian electoral roll

Question 11

what is a cofounder

Answer 11

• extraneous risk factor for an outcome can be constitutional, environmental, or behavioral
  Can lead to distortion of true association b/w exposure and disease

Question 12

exposure component

Answer 12

determinant of interest upon which an outcome depends can be constitutional, environmental or behavioural
- cigarette smoker, fitness enthusiast, high fiber diet

Question 13

analysis component

Answer 13

examination of your study data; estimation of measures of disease frequency and association
* Describe your study population (proportion of rates, exposures)
* Crude estimates (if no cofounding)
* Adjusted estimates (if cofounding)
o Standardization
o Stratified analysis
o Multivariate analysis

Question 14

communication of findings component

Answer 14

tell the appropriate persons or community what you found even if you found no association

*Peer reviewed journals
*Conferences and meetings
*Government reports
*What about popular and social media?

Question 15

sign vs symptom

Answer 15

Sign: an objective indication of disease that can be clinically observed, such as a rash, cough, fever, or elevated blood pressure
Symptom: a subjective indication of illness that is experienced by an individual but cannot be directly observed by others

Question 15

what is a case series

Answer 15

a report that describes a group of individuals who have the same health issue

• Goal is to report, not research question, not theory
• The main scientific part: defining the case
  o Based on a list of the inclusion and exclusion criteria individuals will be classified as a case (diagnosed)

Question 15

what is a case report

Answer 15

a report of health issues In one patient
* A disease, disorder, or undergoing a procedure

Question 16

types of analytic studies

Answer 16

experimental: investigator actively manipulates which groups receive agent under study (clinical community trial)
observational: investigator observes as nature takes its course (cohort, case control)

Question 17

prevalence

Answer 17

the percentage of members of a population who have a given health issue at the time of a study

Question 18

point prevalence vs period prevalence

Answer 18

Point prevalence: the proportion of a population with a particular characteristic at one point in time
Period prevalence: the proportion of a population with a particular characteristic during a defined time period, such as several weeks or several months

Question 19

limitations to cross sectional studies

Answer 19

• Can not be used to assess causality
• An exposure can be said to be “associated” or “related” to a disease, but a cross-sectional study cannot show that an exposure caused a disease

Question 20

what is a repeated cross sectional study

Answer 20

a series of cross-sectional studies that re-sample and re-survey representatives from the same source population at two or more different time points

Question 21

correlational studies

Answer 21

the unit of analysis is the group not the individual. The group or ecological unit, represents an aggregate of individuals

Question 22

ecological fallacy

Answer 22

a mistaken belief, especially one based on unsound argument
- The experience of individuals in a population can vary significantly from the population average

Question 23

cohort study

Answer 23

Compare rates of a new (incident) disease in people with different exposure histories or follow a population forward in time to look for incident cases of disease

Question 24

primary, secondary and teritary study

Answer 24

primary: collects new data from individuals
secondary: analyzes an existing data set or existing health records
teritary: reviews and synthesizes the existing literature on a topic

Question 25

analytic epidemiology

Answer 25

studies seek to identify the risk factors (protective factors) for adverse health outcomes or test the effectiveness of interventions intended to improve health status

Question 26

descriptive epidemiology

Answer 26

observational studies that quantify how often various health-related exposures and outcomes occur in a population

Question 27

illness definition

Answer 27

described how a person perceives their own experience of having an adverse health condition

Question 28

sickness definition

Answer 28

describes how a person with an adverse health condition relates to and is regarded by their community

Question 29

ICD Codes

Answer 29

iagnostic categorizations based on the international classification of diseases (ICD) (also called international statistical classification of diseases and related health problems

Question 30

PPTs

Answer 30

person, place, and time characteristics that set the context for a case series or for other types of descriptive epidemiology studies

Question 31

Which of the following can only be written and disseminated when a researcher has access to an appropriate source of cases and when there is a compelling reason to write about those cases?

Answer 31

case series

Question 32

representativeness

Answer 32

the degree to which the participants in a study are similar to the source population from which they were drawn

Question 33

active vs passive. surveillance

Answer 33

Active Surveillance - process of public health officials contacting healthcare providers in their jurisdictions to ask how often clinicians are diagnosing particular types of disease
Passive Surveillance - compilation of reports of notifiable diseases diagnoses submitted by medical labs

Question 34

prevalence ratio (PR)

Answer 34

• compares prevalence of a characteristic in 2 independent populations (or independent subpopulations of study participants) by taking a ratio of their prevalence rates

Question 35

Spearman Rank-Order Correlation

Answer 35

used when examining the correlation bw variables that assign a rank to responses or that have ordered categories (scales that range from 1=stringly disagree to 5= strongly agree)

Question 36

Which of the following refers to the incorrect distribution of population-level association to individuals?

Answer 36

Ecological Fallacy