Deck 12: Quantitative Sciences: Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and the Use of Public Health Data

Question 1

Explain the importance of vital statistics in public health surveillance.

Answer 1

Vital statistics (birth and death records) are one of the oldest and most complete public sources of health information. Vital records provide an essentially complete and continuous source of data for health assessment and policy making. Birth and death records generally contain individual identifiers, geographic location, date, and personal characteristics. Birth data have been used to assess utilization of prenatal care and trends in delivery method and birth weight. Death records list a cause of death, and mortality data are commonly used to examine trends in leading causes of death and for surveillance of mortality associated with acute events such as extreme weather, natural disasters, and disease outbreaks.

Question 2

Explain the difference between analytic epidemiology and descriptive epidemiology.

Answer 2

Analytic epidemiology is concerned with the study of determinants, the causes and risk factors, or the "why" and "how" of a health-related outcome. It makes use of inferential statistics to evaluate data, assess the strength of the evidence for or against a hypothesis, make comparisons, and generalize conclusions from a representative sample of data to the whole population.
Descriptive epidemiology is concerned with the study of the distribution of health-related outcomes or events. Data at the population level are organized and summarized quantitatively by person, place, and time. This leads to better understanding of the data and the population, the ability to identify patterns and trends, and the ability to generate hypotheses for further study.

Question 3

Differentiate between morbidity and mortality rates and incidence and prevalence. Explain what is meant by the epidemiologic terms: attack rate and years of potential life lost.

Answer 3

Morbidity relates to having an illness, injury, or disability. Morbidity measures quantify a population's likelihood of developing or having an illness, injury, disability, or other adverse health condition.
Mortality rates (death rates) are an estimate of the frequency of occurrence of death among a defined population during a specified period.
Incidence is the rate at which new events (e.g., new cases of disease) occur among a population during a specified period.
Prevalence is the proportion of persons among a population who have a particular disease or attribute at a specific point in time or during a specified period.
Attack rate (cumulative incidence) is a measure of incidence most often calculated during the investigation of an acute outbreak of disease. It represents the proportion of a population that experienced a specific illness during a defined time period.
Years of potential life lost is a measure of the impact of premature mortality (death before age 75 or before the average life expectancy is reached) on a population.