EPIDEMIOLOGY COMPREHENSIVE UPDATED EXAM
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS MARKED A+
✔✔William Farr - ✔✔Mortality surveillance, use of vital statistics,
-In charge of medical statistics in the Office of the Registrar General for England (1839)
-Set up a system for routine compilation of the numbers and causes of deaths
-Addressed many issues relevant to modern epidemiology including case definition,
using comparison populations, and addressing confounding factors such as age.
✔✔John Snow - ✔✔- "Father of Epidemiology"
-Investigated cholera 1849-1854
-Lambeth company - water above London
-Southward and Vauzhall Company - water below London
-1854 epidemic of cholera in London
-Tested hypothesis
-Charted frequency and distribution of disease
-Ascertained cause/determinant
-First to draw all three components of epidemiology together
oDistribution, determinants, population
-Important: it is not always necessary to know pathogenic mechanism to prevent
disease
✔✔Bacteriological Revolution - ✔✔-"Point-contact spread" of infection
✔✔Salk Vaccine - ✔✔- 1954 - largest formal human experiment
✔✔1964 - ✔✔- US Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health
✔✔1970's - ✔✔- evolution of microcomputer technologies allowed new multivariate
statistical methods to develop
✔✔1990s - ✔✔- application of techniques in molecular biology to large populations
✔✔Three Stages of Modern Epidemiology - ✔✔Sanitary statistics, Infectious disease
epidemiology, Chronic disease epidemiology
✔✔Sanitary statistics - ✔✔poisoning by soil, air, water
✔✔Infectious disease epidemiology - ✔✔germ theory (single agent, specific disease)
✔✔Chronic disease epidemiology - ✔✔since WWII, "black box" approach, risk factors
, ✔✔Successes in Epidemiology and Public Health - ✔✔Cholera, smallpox, Legionnaire's
Disease, Infant Mortality/life expectancy, Toxic Shock Syndrome, smoking/tobacco
(lung cancer), CHD - Coronary Heart Disease
✔✔vector - ✔✔any insect or living carrier that transports infectious agent from infected
individual or its waste to a susceptible individual or its food.
-Ex. Ticks carry rickettsiae, which cause Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
✔✔Vehicle - ✔✔contaminated inanimate object that transmits the disease (ex.
doorknob)
✔✔Teenage smoking example - ✔✔Host = teenagers; agent = cigarettes; vector/vehicle
= advertising; environment = social setting
✔✔many stages of disease - ✔✔-Stage of susceptibility
-Subclinical disease (before we recognize symptoms)
-Clinical disease (mind, moderate or severe?)
✔✔clinical infection - ✔✔presence of signs and symptoms
✔✔nonclinical infection - ✔✔preclinical, subclinical, persistant, latent
✔✔preclinical - ✔✔not yet apparent, but will progress
✔✔subclinical - ✔✔an infectious with no clinical symptoms, usually diagnosed by a
serological response or culture. People with unapparent infections are often able to
transmit the infectious to others.
✔✔persistent (chronic) infection - ✔✔a chronic infection with continued low-grade
survival and multiplication of the agent
✔✔latent infection/disease - ✔✔an infection with no active multiplication of the agent. In
contrast with a persistent infection, only the genetic message is present in the host, not
viable organisms.
✔✔carrier status - ✔✔individual that has the organism but is not infected, capable of
transmitting
✔✔horizontal transfer - ✔✔(transmission within a population, between a source and
vulnerable person) vs. vertical (from other to baby, of a genetic or infectious nature)
✔✔single exposure - ✔✔one time contact, all infected at same time, single epidemic
peak (church dinner)
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS MARKED A+
✔✔William Farr - ✔✔Mortality surveillance, use of vital statistics,
-In charge of medical statistics in the Office of the Registrar General for England (1839)
-Set up a system for routine compilation of the numbers and causes of deaths
-Addressed many issues relevant to modern epidemiology including case definition,
using comparison populations, and addressing confounding factors such as age.
✔✔John Snow - ✔✔- "Father of Epidemiology"
-Investigated cholera 1849-1854
-Lambeth company - water above London
-Southward and Vauzhall Company - water below London
-1854 epidemic of cholera in London
-Tested hypothesis
-Charted frequency and distribution of disease
-Ascertained cause/determinant
-First to draw all three components of epidemiology together
oDistribution, determinants, population
-Important: it is not always necessary to know pathogenic mechanism to prevent
disease
✔✔Bacteriological Revolution - ✔✔-"Point-contact spread" of infection
✔✔Salk Vaccine - ✔✔- 1954 - largest formal human experiment
✔✔1964 - ✔✔- US Surgeon General's Advisory Committee on Smoking and Health
✔✔1970's - ✔✔- evolution of microcomputer technologies allowed new multivariate
statistical methods to develop
✔✔1990s - ✔✔- application of techniques in molecular biology to large populations
✔✔Three Stages of Modern Epidemiology - ✔✔Sanitary statistics, Infectious disease
epidemiology, Chronic disease epidemiology
✔✔Sanitary statistics - ✔✔poisoning by soil, air, water
✔✔Infectious disease epidemiology - ✔✔germ theory (single agent, specific disease)
✔✔Chronic disease epidemiology - ✔✔since WWII, "black box" approach, risk factors
, ✔✔Successes in Epidemiology and Public Health - ✔✔Cholera, smallpox, Legionnaire's
Disease, Infant Mortality/life expectancy, Toxic Shock Syndrome, smoking/tobacco
(lung cancer), CHD - Coronary Heart Disease
✔✔vector - ✔✔any insect or living carrier that transports infectious agent from infected
individual or its waste to a susceptible individual or its food.
-Ex. Ticks carry rickettsiae, which cause Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever
✔✔Vehicle - ✔✔contaminated inanimate object that transmits the disease (ex.
doorknob)
✔✔Teenage smoking example - ✔✔Host = teenagers; agent = cigarettes; vector/vehicle
= advertising; environment = social setting
✔✔many stages of disease - ✔✔-Stage of susceptibility
-Subclinical disease (before we recognize symptoms)
-Clinical disease (mind, moderate or severe?)
✔✔clinical infection - ✔✔presence of signs and symptoms
✔✔nonclinical infection - ✔✔preclinical, subclinical, persistant, latent
✔✔preclinical - ✔✔not yet apparent, but will progress
✔✔subclinical - ✔✔an infectious with no clinical symptoms, usually diagnosed by a
serological response or culture. People with unapparent infections are often able to
transmit the infectious to others.
✔✔persistent (chronic) infection - ✔✔a chronic infection with continued low-grade
survival and multiplication of the agent
✔✔latent infection/disease - ✔✔an infection with no active multiplication of the agent. In
contrast with a persistent infection, only the genetic message is present in the host, not
viable organisms.
✔✔carrier status - ✔✔individual that has the organism but is not infected, capable of
transmitting
✔✔horizontal transfer - ✔✔(transmission within a population, between a source and
vulnerable person) vs. vertical (from other to baby, of a genetic or infectious nature)
✔✔single exposure - ✔✔one time contact, all infected at same time, single epidemic
peak (church dinner)
