Community test 2

the study of the distribution and determinants of health and disease in human populations

epidemiology

• Who: age, race, health, diseases
• Where: climate, politics
• When: week, month

• Study of the amount and distribution of disease
• Used by public health professionals
• Identified patterns frequently indicate possible causes of disease

• Examine complex relationships among the many determinants of disease
• Investigation of the cause of disease, or etiology
• Example: causes of ovarian cancers in women in the area

• Nutritive elements: cholesterol
• Chemical agents: carbon monoxide
• Physical agents: radiation
• Infectious agents: flu

influence existence of the agent, exposure, or susceptibility to agent

• Physical environment
• Biologic environment
• Socioeconomic environment

Emphasize the role of evolving macro-level socioenvironmental factors along with microbiological process in understanding health and illness

Challenges the more individually focused risk factor approach to understanding disease origins

• new cases or conditions
• Attack rate

number of new cases of those exposed to the disease

all cases of a specific disease or condition at a given time

number of births in one year/ thousand total population

# deaths in 1 year/ thousand total population

cancer deaths during a year/ for a particular age group X100,000

estimate of the disease burden in a population

divide the incidence rate of disease in the exposed population by the incidence rate of disease in the nonexposed population

• anything over 1 means increased risk
• anything less than 1 means decreased risk