HSC4500-Epidemiology – Flashcards
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Epidemiology is the:
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Study of disease among populations
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John Snow contributed to the field of epidemiology largely through his investigation of:
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Cholera
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The study of disease statistics is:
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Morbidity
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The association between cigarette smoking and cancer reported by the Surgeon General of the United States in what year?
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1964
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A ________ is a type of ratio used to measure risks associated with exposures and provide information about the speed of development of a disease.
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Rate
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An _____ is the occurrence in a community or region of cases of an illness, specific health-related behavior, or other health-related events in excess of normal expectancy.
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epidemic
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A term applied to all possible results that may stem from exposure to a causal factor.
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outcomes
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Administration of immunizations against specific infectious diseases represents __________ prevention.
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Primary
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Programs for cancer screening and early detection of other chronic diseases represents _______ prevention.
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Secondary
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Physical therapy for stroke victims and fitness programs for recovering heart attack patients are examples of _________ prevention.
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tertiary
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Descriptive epidemiology examines causal hypotheses regarding the association between exposures and health conditions.
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false
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_______ was a London surgeon thought to be the first individual to describe an environmental cause of cancer.
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Sir Percival Pott
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The German physician who verified that a human disease was caused by a specific living organism.
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Robert Koch
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_________ is defined as a type of study of the placement of health services in a community and the optimum utilization of such services.
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Operations research
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A _______ variable is defined as a variable that could have an infinite number of values.
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continuous
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A ________ is used to display the frequencies of cases for categories of a discrete variable.
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bar chart
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A _______ is a type of graphical display that enables the reader to detect trends in the data; for example, a time trend.
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line graph
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A rate differs from a proportion because:
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the denominator in a rate involves a measure of time
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The term _______ refers to the occurrence of new disease or mortality within a defined period of observation.
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incidence
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A term applied to all cases of a disease, health condition, or deaths that exist at a particular point in time relative to a specific population from which the cases are derived:
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point prevalence
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__________ refers to the number of deaths due to a disease that occur among persons who are afflicted with that disease.
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case fatality rate
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__________ refers to the systematic and continuous gathering of information about the occurrence of diseases and other health phenomena.
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Public health surveillance
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Which of the following does NOT represent a nationally notifiable infectious disease?
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Strep throat
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_______ is operated by the National Cancer Institute and is a source of cancer incidence and survival data from population-based cancer registries.
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SEER program
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The BRFSS is a state-based system of health surveys that collects information on health risk factors, preventive health practices, and _____________.
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healthcare access
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________ are a type of prevalence study that make a one-time assessment (similar to a snapshot) of disease in a study group
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cross-sectional studies
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Descriptive epidemiology describes data according to person, place, and ______________:
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time
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The observation that employed populations tend to have a lower mortality rate than the general population is termed:
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healthy worker effect
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Because a case-control study begins with the outcome of interest and looks back at possible causes of the outcome, it is ______________ in nature.
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retrospective
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____________ occurs when an extrinsic factor is associated with a disease outcome and independent of that association is also associated with the exposure; an extraneous factor has entered into the exposure-disease association.
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confounding
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If an epidemiological study focuses on the outcomes among a sample of employed individuals, the healthy worker effect may be a source of:
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(not recall bias)
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The experimental study design considered to be the "gold standard" in epidemiology because it utilizes the most scientifically rigorous procedures.
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randomized control trial
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In Hill's Criteria of Causality, _________ means an exposure is associated with only one disease or the disease is associated with only one exposure.
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specificity of association
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In Hill's Criteria of Causality, the concept of ___________ refers to the need for the exposure to proceed the development of a disease in order for that exposure to be deemed a cause of that disease. The cause must precede the effect.
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temporality
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Gradual changes in the frequency of disease over long periods of time:
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secular trends
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The term applied to a closely grouped series of events or cases of a disease or other health-related phenomena with well-defined distribution patterns in relation to time or place or both.
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clustering
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______ refers to a linkage between or among variables. These variables may be positively or negatively related.
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association
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This term refers to the lowest dose at which a particular response occurs.
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threshold
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The term applied to a type of association in which the frequency of an outcome increases with the frequency of exposure to a factor.
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method of concomitant variation
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The process of defining measurement procedures for the variables used in a study.
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operationalization
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A range of values that with a certain degree of probability contain the population parameter.
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confidence interval estimate
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A study in which the units of analysis are populations or groups of people rather than individuals.
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ecologic study
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______ is a measure of the association between frequency of exposure and frequency of outcome used in case-control studies.
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odds ratio
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The measure of association used in cohort studies is termed _____:
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relative risk
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___________ refers to the degree to which the study has used methodologically sound procedures.
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internal validity
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The term ___________ refers to study participants' behavioral changes as a result of their knowledge of being in a study.
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Hawthorne effect
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The process used in a research study to make certain that the subjects in the study are unaware of whether they are participating in the treatment or control conditions (groups).
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blinding
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A type of study in which the investigator manipulates the study factor but does not assign individual subjects randomly to the exposed and nonexposed groups.
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quasi-experimental study
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The term _______ is defined as an erroneous inference that may occur because an association observed between variables on an aggregate level does not necessarily represent or reflect the association that exists at an individual level.
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ecologic fallacy
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The term that refers to the time period between initial exposure and a measurable response.
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latency
