NR-503 Epidemiology Midterm Question
and Answer 2026/2027 |
• defenition and use of epidemiology -✓✓Epidemilogy is the study of how often diseases
occur in different groups of people and why.
Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinates of health problems in
specified populations and the application of this study to control health problems.
epidemiology is concerned with distribution and determinates of health and diseases,
mobility, injuries, disability, and mortality in populations. Epidemiologic studies are
applied to the control of health problems in populations.
uses:
1. Historical Use
2. Community health use
3. health services use
4. risk assessment use
5. disease causality
• Natural history of disease in disease prevention -✓✓the course of disease from its
beginning to its final clinical endpoints
• Descriptive versus analytical studies -✓✓- Descriptive epidemiology refers to
epidemiological refers to epidemiological studies concerned with characterizing the
amount and distribution of health and disease within a population
- covers time, place and person (who, where, when, and what)
-usually, used to generate hypothesis
- Analytical epidemiology examines casual (etiological) hypotheses regarding the
association between exposures and health conditions (how/why)
- used to test hypothesis
-usually, descriptive studies precede analytical studies
- approach of analytical epidemiology is to take advantage of naturally occurring
situations or events in order to test causal hypothesis
- Naturally occurring events= natural experiments
- natural experiments are defined as "naturally occurring circumstances in which
subsets of the population have different levels of exposure to a supposed casual factor
, in a situation resembling and actual experiment, where human subjects would be
randomly allocated to groups."
- Epidemiology cannot prove that a particular exposure caused a particular outcome- we
can only infer causality!!!
- Epidemiology provides sufficient evidence to take appropriate control and prevention
measures
• Population Focus -✓✓"all the inhabitants of a given country or area considered
together"
doesn't always have to be humans
epidemiology: population approach
medicine: clinical approach (individual medicine)
populations in epidemiology:
neighborhoods
a city, county, state, territory, or country
a school
an inpatient or outpatient healthcare family
The global community
• Distribution -✓✓The occurance of diseases and other health outcomes varies in
populations, with some subgroups of the populations more frequently affected then
others
• Determinants/exposures -✓✓a determinate is "any factor that brings about change in a
health condition or other defined characteristics
determinats =cause/focus
could be risk or protective factors
Exposures related to determinants are exposures, which pertain either to contact with a
disease-causing factor or to the amount of the factor that affects a group or individuals
• Outcomes (morbidity, mortality) -✓✓"All the possible results that may stem from
exposure to a casual factor"
Expressed as types and measures of morbidity and mortality
Morbidity: illnesses due to a specific disease or health condition (e.g. diabetes)
and Answer 2026/2027 |
• defenition and use of epidemiology -✓✓Epidemilogy is the study of how often diseases
occur in different groups of people and why.
Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinates of health problems in
specified populations and the application of this study to control health problems.
epidemiology is concerned with distribution and determinates of health and diseases,
mobility, injuries, disability, and mortality in populations. Epidemiologic studies are
applied to the control of health problems in populations.
uses:
1. Historical Use
2. Community health use
3. health services use
4. risk assessment use
5. disease causality
• Natural history of disease in disease prevention -✓✓the course of disease from its
beginning to its final clinical endpoints
• Descriptive versus analytical studies -✓✓- Descriptive epidemiology refers to
epidemiological refers to epidemiological studies concerned with characterizing the
amount and distribution of health and disease within a population
- covers time, place and person (who, where, when, and what)
-usually, used to generate hypothesis
- Analytical epidemiology examines casual (etiological) hypotheses regarding the
association between exposures and health conditions (how/why)
- used to test hypothesis
-usually, descriptive studies precede analytical studies
- approach of analytical epidemiology is to take advantage of naturally occurring
situations or events in order to test causal hypothesis
- Naturally occurring events= natural experiments
- natural experiments are defined as "naturally occurring circumstances in which
subsets of the population have different levels of exposure to a supposed casual factor
, in a situation resembling and actual experiment, where human subjects would be
randomly allocated to groups."
- Epidemiology cannot prove that a particular exposure caused a particular outcome- we
can only infer causality!!!
- Epidemiology provides sufficient evidence to take appropriate control and prevention
measures
• Population Focus -✓✓"all the inhabitants of a given country or area considered
together"
doesn't always have to be humans
epidemiology: population approach
medicine: clinical approach (individual medicine)
populations in epidemiology:
neighborhoods
a city, county, state, territory, or country
a school
an inpatient or outpatient healthcare family
The global community
• Distribution -✓✓The occurance of diseases and other health outcomes varies in
populations, with some subgroups of the populations more frequently affected then
others
• Determinants/exposures -✓✓a determinate is "any factor that brings about change in a
health condition or other defined characteristics
determinats =cause/focus
could be risk or protective factors
Exposures related to determinants are exposures, which pertain either to contact with a
disease-causing factor or to the amount of the factor that affects a group or individuals
• Outcomes (morbidity, mortality) -✓✓"All the possible results that may stem from
exposure to a casual factor"
Expressed as types and measures of morbidity and mortality
Morbidity: illnesses due to a specific disease or health condition (e.g. diabetes)
