EPI test 1 – Flashcards
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What is basic research?
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studies cells, tissues, & animals in a laboratory setting usually focused on disease mechanism/process. Examples: immunology, toxicology
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What is clinical research?
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focuses on disease diagnosis/prognosis & treatment. Based on people who come to a medical care facility. Examples: pediatrics, internal medicine
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What is public health research?
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studies populations or communities at large. Example: epidemiology
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What is epidemiology?
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the study of the distribution and determinants of disease frequency in human populations and the application of this study to control health problems Key words: population, disease frequency, disease distribution, disease determinants, disease
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Who is John Snow?
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(1813-1858) Snow used data obtained by Farr to conduct a study for the Broad Street cholera epidemic, proved cholera was transmitted by fecal contamination of drinking water.
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What is a population?
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Group of people with a common characteristic. Ex. Age, residence, or the occurrence of an event.
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What is incidence?
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measures occurrence of new disease; captures the transition from health to disease
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What is cumulative incidence?
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defined as the proportion of a candidate population that becomes diseased over a specified time period. Average risk of getting a disease over a period of time. Numerator (number of new cases of disease) Denominator (population at risk). Proportion can be expressed as a percentage. Usually used in fixed populations.
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What is incidence rate?
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defined as the occurrence of new cases of disease that arises during person-time of observation. Numerator (number of new cases of disease) /Denominator (person-time of observation in candidate population). Used for dynamic populations.
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What is prevalence
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Measures the proportion of the total population that is diseased at a point in time Numerator (number of existing cases) /Denominator (total population)
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What is a cohort study?
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healthy subjects are defined according to their exposure status and followed over time to determine the incidence of symptoms, disease, or death. The common characteristics for grouping the subjects is their exposure level.
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What are observational studies?
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Studies causes, preventions, and treatments for diseases; investigator passively observes as nature takes its course. NO INTERVENTION.
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What is an experimental study?
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Studies in which all of the risk factors are controlled by the investigator. Purpose is to study preventions and treatments for diseases. Investigators manipulates which groups receive the agent under study
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What are the four types of observational studies?
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Cohort, Case-Control, Cross-Sectional, Ecological
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What is a descriptive study?
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investigates the distribution of disease (occurrence)
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What is an analytical study?
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investigate the determinants of disease
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What is the formula for prevalence?
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= Incidence rate x Duration of disease
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What are the main objectives of epidemiology?
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1)study the natural course of disease from onset to resolution 2)determine the extent of disease in a population 3)identify patterns and trends in disease occurrence 4)identify the causes of disease 5)evaluate the effectiveness of measures that prevent and treat disease
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What is the domain of descriptive epidemiology? What characteristics are analyzed?
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Distribution of disease. Person, Place, Time.
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What are the types of descriptive studies? (4 Cs)
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1) Case Reports 2) Case Studies 3) Correlational Studies 4) Cross-sectional studies
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What are Case reports/case studies?
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Describes experience of single patient or group of patients
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What is a disease cluster?
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aggregation of relatively uncommon events or disease in space and/or time in amounts that are believed or perceived to be greater than could be expected by chance.
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What are the main purposes of descriptive epidemiology?
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examine distribution of disease and to generate specific hypothesis about the causal relationships
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What is a correlational/ecological study?
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Compare disease frequencies from entire populations based on some factor of interest. Different groups over same time period Same group over different time periods.
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What are the strengths of a correlational/ecological study? What are the limitations?
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Quick, inexpensive, can utilize existing data Provide data on populations not individuals, cannot control for all differences among populations
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What is a cross-sectional study?
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"Am I like my neighbors?" study compares groups in terms of their current health and exposure status and assesses their similarities. POPULATION IS NOT SELECTED ON EXPOSURE OR DISEASE "snapshot"
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What is a cohort study?
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Typically examines multiple health effects of an exposure; subjects are defined according to their exposure levels and followed for disease occurrence.
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What is a case-control study?
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the "why me?" study investigates the prior exposure of individuals with a particular health condition and those without it to infer why certain subjects, the "cases," become ill and others, the "controls," do not.
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What is a ecological study?
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examines relationship between exposure and disease with population-level rather than individual-level data.
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What are the strengths of a cross-sectional study? Limits?
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Exposure and disease data from individuals Provide important data for public health planning low cost! and generalizability! No temporal sequence between exposure and disease Assess prevalence of disease
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What are crude rates?
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A summary measure calculated by dividing the total number of cases in the population by the total number of individuals in that population at a specified time period i.e. crude death rates
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How do you calculate crude death rate?
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total number of deaths / total population
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What are the Observational Analytic studies?
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case-control and cohort
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What are the experimental analytic studies?
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clinical trials
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What are case-control studies?
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Study subjects SELECTED based on disease Then obtain exposure history ***GOOD FOR RARE DISEASES**
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Strengthes of case-control studies? Limits?
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Efficient, inexpensive, Good for rare diseases, multiple exposures Temporal sequence Control selection Information bias
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What are cohort studies?
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AKA FOLLOW-UP STUDIES The "What will happen to me?" study follows a group of healthy people with different levels of exposure and assesses what happens to their health over time. Disease-free subjects selected and classified based on exposure, follow subjects through time.
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What is a retrospective cohort?
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Historical records Everything has happened already
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What is a prospective cohort?
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Nothing has happened yet! Gunna follow them through the future!
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Strengths of cohort studies? limits?
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Maintain temporal sequence, Direct estimate effect, Good for rare exposures, multiple outcomes Expensive, Take a long time, Require a large study size, Exposure can change
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What are clinical trials?
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A controlled study involving human subjects, designed to evaluate prospectively the safety and effectiveness of new drugs or devices or of behavioral interventions.
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Strengths of clinical trials? Limitations?
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"Gold standard" Costly, Time consuming
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correlational studies?
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population comparisons
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strengths of cross-sectional studies?
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The main advantage is that the study is a particularly easy study to conduct, as we do not have to wait for the health outcome to occur or estimate what the level of exposure was likely to have been years ago. Its main disadvantage is that a cause can't be inferred, because only current health and exposure are being studied.
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