Why is epidemiology important to understanding health?
Epidemiology identifies the distribution of diseases, factors underlying their source and cause, and methods for their control; this requires an understanding of how political, social and scientific factors intersect to exacerbate disease risk, which makes epidemiology a unique science.
What is the role of epidemiology as it relates to clinical practice?
Epidemiology has an important clinical impact for it can be used to understand the pathogenesis of diseases, improve diagnostic accuracy, help the patient to reduce risk factors and the physician to choose the correct therapeutic approach.
How is epidemiology used in healthcare?
It is the scientific method of investigation problem-solving used by disease detectives— epidemiologists, laboratory scientists, statisticians, physicians and other health care providers, and public health professionals—to get to the root of health problems and outbreaks in a community.
What is the role of applied epidemiology in public health?
The domain of applied epidemiology has been characterized by the following five core purposes (10): 1) synthesis of results of etiologic studies as input to practice-oriented policies; 2) description of disease and risk-factor patterns as information to set priorities; 3) evaluation of public health programs, laws, and …
What are 2 general types of epidemiologic strategies?
Epidemiologic studies fall into two categories: experimental and observational.
What jobs study diseases?
Epidemiologists are scientists who study diseases within populations of people. In essence, these public health professionals analyze what causes disease outbreaks in order to treat existing diseases and prevent future outbreaks.
What is the strongest study design?
A well-designed randomized controlled trial, where feasible, is generally the strongest study design for evaluating an intervention’s effectiveness.
What study design is used for rare diseases?
Case-control studies are inexpensive, efficient, and often less time-consuming to conduct. This study design is especially suitable for rare diseases that have long latency periods. Case-crossover studies are helpful to study triggers within an individual.
What is the weakest study design?
As the exposure status/outcome of interest information is collected in a single moment in time, often by surveys, cross-sectional study design cannot provide a cause-effect relationship and is the weakest of the observational designs.
What study design is best for studying rare diseases?
Case-control studies are particularly efficient for rare diseases because they begin by identifying a sufficient number of diseased people (or people have some “outcome” of interest) to enable you to do an analysis that tests associations.
What is the most time consuming study?
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When would you use a case control study?
A case-control study is designed to help determine if an exposure is associated with an outcome (i.e., disease or condition of interest). In theory, the case-control study can be described simply. First, identify the cases (a group known to have the outcome) and the controls (a group known to be free of the outcome).
What is the primary objective of any case control or cohort study?
The goal is to retrospectively determine the exposure to the risk factor of interest from each of the two groups of individuals: cases and controls. These studies are designed to estimate odds. Case control studies are also known as “retrospective studies” and “case-referent studies.”
What is an example of a case control study?
For example, in a case-control study of the association between smoking and lung cancer the inclusion of controls being treated for a condition related to smoking (e.g. chronic bronchitis) may result in an underestimate of the strength of the association between exposure (smoking) and outcome.
What is the difference between a cohort study and a case control study?
Whereas the cohort study is concerned with frequency of disease in exposed and non-exposed individuals, the case-control study is concerned with the frequency and amount of exposure in subjects with a specific disease (cases) and people without the disease (controls).
What are the advantages of a cohort study?
A major advantage of the cohort study design is the ability to study multiple outcomes that can be associated with a single exposure or multiple exposures in a single study. Even the combined effect of multiple exposures on the outcome can be determined. Cohort study designs also allow for the study of rare exposures.