Assignment: Epidemiologic Sub-fields

Assignment: Epidemiologic Sub-fields

Assignment: Epidemiologic Sub-fields

Week 5 discussion Discussion Part One Epidemiologic Sub-fields Pick a disease in your geographic area and identify how it is tied to either infectious, chronic, gynecological or sexually transmitted infection (STI), environmental, cultural or geographic causation. Discussion Part Two Provide the specific descriptive epidemiological aspects of this disease as it relates to your geographic area. Discussion Part Three Please provide a summary of the case or information you have discussed this week.

Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and  of health and disease conditions in defined .

It is a cornerstone of , and shapes policy decisions and  by identifying  for disease and targets for . Epidemiologists help with study design, collection, and  of data, amend interpretation and dissemination of results (including  and occasional ). Epidemiology has helped develop  used in ,  studies, and, to a lesser extent,  in the biological sciences.

Major areas of epidemiological study include disease causation, ,  investigation, , , , , , , and comparisons of treatment effects such as in . Epidemiologists rely on other scientific disciplines like  to better understand disease processes,  to make efficient use of the data and draw appropriate conclusions,  to better understand proximate and distal causes, and  for .

Epidemiology, literally meaning “the study of what is upon the people”, is derived from  epi, meaning ‘upon, among’, , meaning ‘people, district’, and , meaning ‘study, word, discourse’, suggesting that it applies only to human populations. However, the term is widely used in studies of zoological populations (veterinary epidemiology), although the term “” is available, and it has also been applied to studies of plant populations (botanical or ).

The distinction between “epidemic” and “endemic” was first drawn by , to distinguish between diseases that are “visited upon” a population (epidemic) from those that “reside within” a population (endemic). The term “epidemiology” appears to have first been used to describe the study of epidemics in 1802 by the Spanish physician Villalba in Epidemiología Española. Epidemiologists also study the interaction of diseases in a population, a condition known as a .

The term epidemiology is now widely applied to cover the description and causation of not only epidemic disease, but of disease in general, and even many non-disease, health-related conditions, such as high blood pressure, depression and . Therefore, this epidemiology is based upon how the pattern of the disease causes change in the function of everyone.