What is Epidemiology?
The definition of Epidemiology is:
"The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states in specified populations, and the application of this study to control health problems."
But what does that actually mean? The CDC website breaks that definition down into key words.
"The study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states in specified populations, and the application of this study to control health problems."
But what does that actually mean? The CDC website breaks that definition down into key words.
Study - Epidemiology is the basic science of public health. It is highly quantitative (vs. qualitative), which means it uses lots of numbers, statistics, and facts.
Distribution - Epidemiologists study the distribution of frequencies and patterns of health events within groups in a population.
Determinants - Epidemiologists attempt to search for causes or factors that are associated with increased risk or probability of disease. This type is called analytical epidemiology, when epidemiologists move away from "who," "what," "where," and "when" to think about "how".
Health-related states - Epidemiology applies to the entire spectrum of health-related events, including infection disease, chronic disease, environmental problems, behavioral problems, and injuries.
Populations - A very important distinguishing factor of epidemiology is that it deals with populations and groups, rather than individual patients.
Control - Finally, epidemiologists strive to control and prevent health problems, in a field called applied epidemiology.
Distribution - Epidemiologists study the distribution of frequencies and patterns of health events within groups in a population.
Determinants - Epidemiologists attempt to search for causes or factors that are associated with increased risk or probability of disease. This type is called analytical epidemiology, when epidemiologists move away from "who," "what," "where," and "when" to think about "how".
Health-related states - Epidemiology applies to the entire spectrum of health-related events, including infection disease, chronic disease, environmental problems, behavioral problems, and injuries.
Populations - A very important distinguishing factor of epidemiology is that it deals with populations and groups, rather than individual patients.
Control - Finally, epidemiologists strive to control and prevent health problems, in a field called applied epidemiology.
Chain of Infection
A very important concept in epidemiology is the chain of infection, which is used to gather and organize information about an epidemic to put an end to it. Each of the six links in the chain must be favorable to the organism for the epidemic to thrive. If even one of the links isn't present, then the whole flow will be disrupted. So, to stop the epidemic, epidemiologists work to figure out how to break a link the in the chain. Depending on the organism, different links will be easier.