Measuring health

Question 1

What is the purpose of descriptive studies?

Answer 1

generates a hypothesis but can’t confirm it

Question 2

what are the three types of descriptive studies?

Answer 2

Case studies, case series and cross-sectional survey

Question 3

What is the purpose of case study?

Answer 3

Understanding the report of ONE patient (them and the disease) to generate a hypothesis about expsoure and disease relationship

Question 4

What is the structure of a case study?

Answer 4

Examine one patient aksing questions about life, background, exposure and disease.

Question 5

what is the purpose of case series?

Answer 5

To describe the common features and generate a hypothesis about exposure.

Question 6

What is the structure of case series?

Answer 6

Small collection of cases with common characteristics

Question 7

What is the purpose of cross sectional studies?

Answer 7

assess the status of the disease or a population at the same point in time.

Can’t show case and effect as snapshot at the same time.

Question 8

What is an example of a cross sectional study?

Answer 8

5000 Aus Post employees asked about their weight and PA at the same time.

Question 9

What are observational studies?

Answer 9

researcher does not alter what occurs

Question 10

What is the result of observational studies?

Answer 10

reflects what happens in real life but is subject to bias

Question 11

what are interventional studies?

Answer 11

research changes something and then obsevres the result. Exposure and then watch ouctome

Question 12

What is the result of interventional study?

Answer 12

less bias but is less refelctive of real life.

Question 13

What is the purpose of analytical studies?

Answer 13

attempts to qualify relationship between factors

Question 14

what are the types of analytical studies?

Answer 14

Case Cohort, case control and randomised controlled trail

Question 15

What type of study is RCT part of?

Answer 15

Prospective cohort

Question 16

Is the disease present in case-control studies?

Answer 16

yes - have disease first and then try to find exposure

Question 17

Is the disease present in cohort studies?

Answer 17

no- have exposure and then try to determine what the disease will be

Question 18

What is the outcome and study factor of case-control studies

Answer 18

O= expsore SF= Disease

Question 19

What is the outcome and the study factors of cohort studies?

Answer 19

O= disease SF= exposure

Question 20

What is an example of a case-control study?

Answer 20

1952 study of 700 M and W with lung cancer and 700 without. looked at smoking history and other information.

Question 21

What are case-control study always?

Answer 21

retrospective (looks back)

Question 22

What type of study is a case-control?

Answer 22

analyical - observational

Question 23

What type of study is a RCT?

Answer 23

analytical - INTERVENTIONAL (only one)

Question 24

What are the two groups in a randomised control study?

Answer 24

Control group and study group

Question 25

How are the groups assigned in RTC?

Answer 25

Randomly

Question 26

What is the control group also known as?

Answer 26

Comparison group

Question 27

What must the comparison group be made up of and why?

Answer 27

People that are as alike to the study group as possible. otherwise is confounding.

Question 28

What is an example of Cohort study?

Answer 28

Workers at factory are exposed to asbestos fibres- ask: does exposure to asbestos cause mesothelia?

Question 29

What is confounding?

Answer 29

Third variable is actually the reason for both the disease and the exposure. Thir varible not in postulated pathway.

Question 30

What does the Compounding variable need to be for it to actually be compounding?

Answer 30

independently associated with BOTH presumed exposure and outcome

Question 31

What are compounding factors?

Answer 31

age, height, upbringing, origin, background, gender etc.

Question 32

What are the three types of bias?

Answer 32

Confounding, selection and information

Question 33

what is selection bias?

Answer 33

when the way that people have been selected disorts estimation because there is a difference between participants and non participants or those getting control and those not.

Question 34

What is information bias?

Answer 34

information collected differently between two study groups.

Question 35

What are four ways that researchers make a control group that avoids bias?

Answer 35

restriction, matching, randomisation and statistical methods.

Question 36

How does restriction work?

Answer 36

only have people in certain category (age, gender or ethnicity etc)

Question 37

How does matching work?

Answer 37

Match a person in study group to the person in control group

Question 38

What is the effect of randomisation?

Answer 38

Equally distributes the potentially compounding factors removing chance of bias and that it is reflective of the study group.

Question 39

What is single blinding?

Answer 39

Participant OR researcher DON'T know which arm in.

Question 40

What is double blinding?

Answer 40

BOTH participants and investigator unaware of who getting what.

Question 41

What is incidence?

Answer 41

Number of NEW cases that arise in a given period of time.

Question 42

What is Prevalence?

Answer 42

Number of existing cases in a given time period.

Question 43

What is the importance of calmative incidence?

Answer 43

understanding the probability/risk that individual will develop something over time.

Question 44

How is incidence calculated?

Answer 44

no of new cases in period / number of people at risk

Question 45

How is prevalence calculated?

Answer 45

total number of cases / total population

Question 46

What is the main purpose of incidence and prevalence?

Answer 46

They both give society measures of disease frequency.

Question 47

If the incidence is LOW but duration is LONG =

Answer 47

prevalence is HIGHER than incidence

Question 48

if incidence is HIGH and duration is short =

Answer 48

prevalence is LOWER than incidence

Question 49

Why do we use age-standardisation?

Answer 49

Age can be a confounding factor so need to make specific rates

Question 50

Generally, how is age standardisation made?

Answer 50

Age- standardisation measurement AGAINST a standard reference of population

Question 51

What is CDR?

Answer 51

Crude Death rate and calculates total number of deaths per 1000

Question 52

How is CDR calculated?

Answer 52

Total population deaths/ total population

Question 53

What are the steps for calculating Age Specific death rates?

Answer 53

Amount of deaths in age range/ total population in that age range then; put in rate per 100 000

Question 54

What is the effect of age-standardisation?

Answer 54

Allows two populations to be compared on a standard level without compouding bias.