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Epidemiology

ep-ih-dee-mee-OL-uh-jee
Population Health Field
Magnifying Glass Over Clustered Points

The study of how disease and other health outcomes are distributed across populations and what determines that distribution, the population level practice this atlas carries as distinct from medicine's own clinical study of disease in the individual patient. Epidemiology supplies public health with its central tools: incidence, prevalence, outbreak investigation and the tracing of causes back to exposures.

Facts
Central Question
Who is affected by a given health outcome, where, and why, traced back to the exposures and conditions that explain the pattern. 1
Key Debate
Association is not causation, and epidemiology's own history is full of disputes over whether an observed correlation reflects a real causal exposure or a confounding factor, resolved case by case through further study rather than by the discipline's own rules alone. 1
Epidemiology
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Connections

Associated With

Both are counted among public health's traditional core disciplines; biostatistics supplies the quantitative methods epidemiology's population measures depend on.

Source Wikipedia: Biostatistics
Carlos Finlay, Figures

Carlos Finlay proposed in 1881 that yellow fever was transmitted by mosquitoes, foundational disease-transmission epidemiology.

Includes

Attack Rate, Concepts
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Source UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, John Snow Site
Source United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Official Site

This atlas's own DataBrief names surveillance, outbreak investigation and disease frequency measures as the Epidemiology branch's own population practice.

Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Source United States National Institutes of Health Official Site
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Incidence, Concepts
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
John Snow, Figures
Source UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, John Snow Site
Prevalence, Concepts
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
William Farr, Figures
Source Encyclopedia Britannica
Sources
1. Encyclopedia Britannica
Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc.
  • Epidemiology
    Epidemiology is a branch of medical science that uses statistics to study the distribution of disease in human populations and the factors determining that distribution.
  • Includes: Epidemiological Transition
  • Includes: Incidence
  • Includes: Basic Reproduction Number
  • Includes: Herd Immunity
  • Includes: Prevalence
  • Includes: Thomas McKeown
  • Includes: William Farr
View the Source
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, John Snow Site
UCLA Fielding School of Public Health, Department of Epidemiology
  • Includes: John Snow
  • Includes: Broad Street Pump Investigation
View the Source
United States National Institutes of Health Official Site
US National Institutes of HealthIncludes: Framingham Heart Study FoundingView the Source
United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Official Site
US Centers for Disease Control and PreventionIncludes: Contact TracingView the Source
ECDC Website
European Centre for Disease Prevention and ControlAssociated With: European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, About ECDC, infectious disease protectionView the Source
Africa CDC Website
Africa Centres for Disease Control and PreventionAssociated With: Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, About Us, surveillance platformsView the Source
Wikipedia: Biostatistics
WikipediaAssociated With: Biostatistics, Applications, Public health sectionView the Source
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