Section 2: 6 Section 1 - Combined

Question 1

What are the issues that epidemiology can address?

Answer 1

Disease
Mortality
Hospitalization
Disability
Quality of Life
Health Status

Question 2

What is the numerator used by epidemiologists to calculate disease frequency?

Answer 2

– the number of people to whom something

happened (i.e., they got sick, died, etc.)

Question 3

What is the denominator used by epidemiologists to calculate disease frequency?

Answer 3

– the population at risk – all the people at

risk for the event

Question 4

What is three primary sources of data on health and disease in the U.S.?

Answer 4

1. The National Center for Health Statistics
2. The Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System
3. Consumer Products Safety Commission

Question 5

What is a primary source of data on health and disease worldwide?

Answer 5

World Health Organization

Question 6

Contrast the main units of concern between epidemiology and medicine

Answer 6

For medicine, it’s the individual. For epidemiology, it’s the population.

Question 7

How does epidemiology differ from public health?

Answer 7

Epidemiology is one of many disciplines that comprise public health. It is a “study of” and public health is an activity.

Question 8

How does the WHO definition of health differ from the medical definition?

Answer 8

The medical definition is simply the absence of disease, while WHO includes “physical, mental, and social well-being.”

Question 9

Define morbidity

Answer 9

related to disease or disability

Question 10

Define mortality

Answer 10

related to death

Question 11

Define occurrence of disease

Answer 11

prevalence or incidence of disease & health-related conditions

Question 12

Define endemic

Answer 12

normal occurrence of a condition

Question 13

Define epidemic

Answer 13

greater than normal occurrence of a condition

Question 14

Define pandemic

Answer 14

epidemic on multiple continents

Question 15

How has epidemiology evolved in the 20th century?

Answer 15

transition from acute contagious to chronic non-contagious causes of morbidity; – Morbidity shifted to older age groups and “degenerative diseases”

Question 16

What were the top 5 causes of death in 1900?

Answer 16

1. Pneumonia / influenza
2 TB 
3 Diarrhea 
4 Heart disease* 
5 Cerebrovascular* 
* Large % had infectious component

Question 17

What were the top 5 causes of death in 2009?

Answer 17

1. Heart disease
2 Malignant Neoplasms
3 Cerebrovascular
4 Unintentional Injuries
5 Alzheimer’s disease

Question 18

What are the main factors for why the main causes of death shifted between 1900 and 2009?

Answer 18

1. Medical technology (antibiotics, anesthesia)
2. Birth control
3. Nutrition
4. Sanitation and vector control
5. Education
6. Improved standard of living
7. Many other factors that can’t be over-simplified

Question 19

How has the demographics of the U.S. populations evolved from 1900 to 2000?

Answer 19

Rather than a consistent decline in the number in each age group (men and women), the largest group is ages 30 to 49, and the number of older men and women is approaching the number of younger people

Question 20

How did the Age of Enlightenment and Western Civilization affect the study of disease/science?

Answer 20

Science liberated itself from philosophy, morality, and religion

Question 21

Who is considered the founder of demographics?

Answer 21

John Graunt

Question 22

What is germ theory?

Answer 22

The idea that disease could be caused by a self-replicating (i.e., biological) agent

Question 23

When did germ theory emerge?

Answer 23

began in the 16th century but was not accepted until the later part of the 19th century

Question 24

Before germ theory emerged, what was the primary theory for the spread of disease?

Answer 24

miasma (atmospheric contagion) theory

Question 25

Who were some early contagionists?

Answer 25

``` -- Fracastoro (16th century Italian) – Henle & Koch (German physiologists) – Pasteur – Snow – Daniel Salmon (Salmonellosis; vector borne transmission) ```

Question 26

Describe the early work of John Snow that established him as a founder of modern epidemiology

Answer 26

Snow was a skeptic of the then-dominant miasma theory that stated that diseases such as cholera and bubonic plague were caused by pollution or a noxious form of "bad air". His mapping of cholera cases around a public water pump led to removal of a pump handle and curtailment of the disease (before germ theory was established). He conducted ecological, cohort and case-control studies.

Question 27

What is descriptive epidemiology?

Answer 27

Examining the distribution of disease in a population, and observing the basic features of its distribution

Question 28

What is analytic epidemiology?

Answer 28

Testing a hypothesis about the cause of disease by studying how exposures relate to the disease

Question 29

What is descriptive epidemiology most useful for?

Answer 29

- - Allocating resources - - Planning programs - - Hypotheses development

Question 30

What is analytic epidemiology most useful for?

Answer 30

hypothesis testing

Question 31

What are the three essential characteristics of health-related conditions that we look for in descriptive studies?

Answer 31

- - person - - place - - time

Question 32

What are the aspects of the person that are looked at during descriptive epidemiological studies?

Answer 32

- - Age, gender, ethnicity - - Genetic predisposition - - Concurrent disease - - Diet, exercise, smoking - - Risk taking behavior - - SES, education, occupation

Question 33

What are the aspects of geographic place that are looked at during descriptive epidemiological studies?

Answer 33

``` – presence or agents or vectors – climate – geology – population density – economic development – nutritional practices – medical practices ```

Question 34

What are the aspects of time that are looked at during descriptive epidemiological studies?

Answer 34

- - Calendar Time - - Time since an event - - Physiologic cycles - - Age (time since birth) - - Seasonality - - Temporal trends

Question 35

What are the three essential characteristics that are | examined to study the cause(s) for disease in epidemiology?

Answer 35

-- host -- agent -- environment (the Epidemiological Triangle)

Question 36

What are the host factors that influence the chance | for disease or its severity?

Answer 36

- Personal traits - - Behaviors - - Genetic predisposition - - Immunologic factors

Question 37

What are the three types of agents that are necessary for | disease to occur?

Answer 37

Biological Physical Chemical

Question 38

What are the environmental considerations that contribute to the disease process?

Answer 38

- - External conditions | - - Physical or Biologic or Social

Question 39

What are some causes for the host, agent, and environmental factors to get out of balance and cause and epidemic/health status changes?

Answer 39

- - new agent - - change in existing agent (infectivity, pathogenicity, virulence) - - change in number of susceptibles in the population - - environmental changes that affect transmission of the agent or growth of the agent

Question 40

What is epidemiology?

Answer 40

the study of the determinants, distribution, and frequency of health-related events (historically illness/disease) -- who gets disease and why?