Deck 4: Epidemiology: Introduction and Basic Concepts

Question 1

Epidemiology deals mostly with quantitative data rather than qualitative data.

Answer 1

True

Question 2

Epidemiology is only concerned with understanding the risk factors for bad outcomes or quantifying the negative health effects of bad exposures.

Answer 2

False

Question 3

If we modify the infant mortality rate to account for the average age of mothers across different countries, what kind of rate would be creating?

A) Prevalence rate
B) Incidence rate
C) Crude rate
D) Adjusted rate

Answer 3

Adjusted rate

Question 4

A proportion differs from a rate in that that a proportion includes a unit of time in the denominator as in, per year).

Question 5

We are designing a study to quantify the risk of diabetes among people who are obese body mass index [BMI]>30) compared to people who are neither overweight nor obese BMI<25). Family history is known to be an important risk factor for diabetes. What would we call family history in this study?

A) Exposure
B) Outcome
C) Confounder
D) Population at risk

Question 6

The Christopher and Dana Reeve Foundation is working to estimate the number of people living with paralysis in the United States. What will this number be?

A) Prevalence of paralysis in US
B) Incidence of paralysis in US
C) Relative risk of paralysis in US
D) Odds ratio of paralysis in US

Question 7

When calculating incidence, the population at risk - only those individuals who have a nonzero chance of experiencing the outcome - should be used in the denominator.

Question 8

Influenza flu) cases most commonly occur in the winter months and most people recover within two weeks of onset. Based on this information, which of the following statements is true?

A) Influenza incidence is highest in the winter and prevalence is highest in the summer.
B) Influenza prevalence is highest in the winter but incidence is highest in the summer.
C) Influenza incidence and prevalence are both highest in the winter.
D) Influenza incidence and prevalence are both highest in the summer.

Question 9

Prevalence and incidence measures are related in the following way: a prevalent case is also counted in an incidence measure, so incidence is always higher than prevalence.

Question 10

The table below shows information about testicular cancer and population size in the town of Rockville in 2010. What was the incidence rate of testicular cancer in Rockville in 2010?

A) 325 cases per 100,000 population
B) 25 cases per 100,000 population
C) 300 cases per 40,000 population
D) 25 cases per 40,000 population

Question 11

Epidemiologists are primarily concerned with:

A) Assuring individual patients receive the best medical treatments possible based on their unique characteristics.
B) Assessing the relationship between an exposure and a health outcome.
C) Improving health behaviors.
D) Reducing harmful environmental exposures.

Question 12

When comparing mortality rates in a population across time, it is not necessary to adjust for any confounders since the average age of a population will be stable across years.

Question 13

A confounder is any variable other than the exposure or outcome) that can confuse the relationship between an exposure and outcome of interest.

Question 14

If a researcher is interested in whether eating dairy products is related to developing diabetes, an epidemiologist would call diabetes the in the study.

A) Exposure
B) Outcome
C) Confounder
D) Population at risk

Question 15

At the beginning of a study, a researcher makes a statement about what he or she expects the relationship between an exposure and an outcome to be. This statement is called an) .

A) Hypothesis
B) Risk factor
C) Etiology
D) Confounder

Question 16

Most activities carried out by epidemiologists fall under the assessment core function of public health.

Question 17

Epidemiologists assume that diseases are multifactorial have many causes) and that these causes can be measured and identified.

Question 18

If we know that teenagers are smoking less often now than teenagers were in 1980, which piece of descriptive epidemiology do we have?

A) Person
B) Place
C) Time
D) Cause

Question 19

If one mapped the cases of a particular illness, much like John Snow did with cholera in the 1800s, the information contained in the map geographic location and distribution of disease) would be considered part of the analytic epidemiology of the disease.

Question 20

Descriptive epidemiology includes all of the following pieces of information EXCEPT:

A) Who? Person)
B) Where? Place)
C) When? Time)
D) Why? Cause)