Assignment: Epidemiologic Sub-fields
Assignment: Epidemiologic Sub-fields
Assignment: Epidemiologic Sub-fields
Week 5 discussion Discussion Part One Epidemiologic Sub-fields Pick a disease in your geographic area and identify how it is tied to either infectious, chronic, gynecological or sexually transmitted infection (STI), environmental, cultural or geographic causation. Discussion Part Two Provide the specific descriptive epidemiological aspects of this disease as it relates to your geographic area. Discussion Part Three Please provide a summary of the case or information you have discussed this week.
Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and of health and disease conditions in defined .
It is a cornerstone of , and shapes policy decisions and by identifying for disease and targets for . Epidemiologists help with study design, collection, and of data, amend interpretation and dissemination of results (including and occasional ). Epidemiology has helped develop used in , studies, and, to a lesser extent, in the biological sciences.
Major areas of epidemiological study include disease causation, , investigation, , , , , , , and comparisons of treatment effects such as in . Epidemiologists rely on other scientific disciplines like to better understand disease processes, to make efficient use of the data and draw appropriate conclusions, to better understand proximate and distal causes, and for .
Epidemiology, literally meaning “the study of what is upon the people”, is derived from epi, meaning ‘upon, among’, , meaning ‘people, district’, and , meaning ‘study, word, discourse’, suggesting that it applies only to human populations. However, the term is widely used in studies of zoological populations (veterinary epidemiology), although the term “” is available, and it has also been applied to studies of plant populations (botanical or ).
The distinction between “epidemic” and “endemic” was first drawn by , to distinguish between diseases that are “visited upon” a population (epidemic) from those that “reside within” a population (endemic). The term “epidemiology” appears to have first been used to describe the study of epidemics in 1802 by the Spanish physician Villalba in Epidemiología Española. Epidemiologists also study the interaction of diseases in a population, a condition known as a .
The term epidemiology is now widely applied to cover the description and causation of not only epidemic disease, but of disease in general, and even many non-disease, health-related conditions, such as high blood pressure, depression and . Therefore, this epidemiology is based upon how the pattern of the disease causes change in the function of everyone.
