BASIC EPIDEMIOLGY

EPIDEMILOGY & PUBLIC HEALTH

Organized community efforts aimed at the prevention, preservation, Rehabilitation and promotion of health.

It links many disciplines and depends upon the scientific TOOLS of “EPIDEMIOLOGY”.

PUBLIC HEALTH SURVEILLANCE:

Systematically collects, analyses, interprets and disseminates health data:

DISEASE INVESTIGATION
ANALYTIC STUDIES
EVALUATION -
Effectiveness
Efficiency

OBJECTIVES

1. Define hygiene and describe epidemiological measure to assess burden of
disease in the community.

2. Describe epidemiology of tropical diseases and approach to prevention and control.

3. Describe nutritional problems in the tropics and discussed detection of these problems as well as its management.

4. Describe common environmental and occupational health and measures of prevention.

What is Epidemiology?

Simply : It is the study of health and disease in human populations.
Comprehensively : It is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease frequency in human populations.

WHAT is the event? (the problem)
WHAT is the magnitude?
WHERE did it happen?
WHO are affected?
WHY did it happen?

FIVE main objectives of Epidemiology

1. To identify the cause of disease and its risk factors
2. To determine the extent of disease found in the community
3. To study the natural history and prognosis of disease
4. To evaluate new preventative and therapeutic measures
5. To provide a foundation for developing public policy.

SCOPE OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
Epidemiologic study can be applied to all diseases, conditions and health related events. ex. - Infectious diseases - Study of epidemics - Cardiovascular diseases
- Malignant Diseases - Accidents and injuries -Nutritional disorders
--Emerging & Re-emerging Disease
• Mental illnesses, • Congenital defects, • Drug addictions, • Family planning
• Vaccine Development, • Health services research, • Disease Surveillance
• Disease Forecasting

AIMS

According to the International Epidemiological Association (IEA), epidemiology has three main aims:

1. To describe the distribution and magnitude of health and disease problems in
human populations

2. To identify etiological factors (risk factors) in the pathogenesis of disease

3. To provide the data essential to the planning, implementation and evaluation of
services for the prevention, and control and treatment of disease and to the
setting up of priorities among those services.

PURPOSE OF EPIDEMIOLOGY

1.Provision of data necessary for planning and evaluating health care

2.Identification of determinants of disease so as to enable prevention

3.Evaluation of methods used to control disease

4.Description of natural history of disease

5.Classification of disease

FUNCTIONS OF EPIDEMIOLOGY
1. To discover the agent, host and environmental factors which affect health, in order to provide the scientific basic for the prevention of disease and injury and promotion of health
2. To determine the relative importance of causes of illness, disability and death, in order to establish priorities for research and action
3. To identify those sections of the population which have greatest risk from specific causes of ill health, in order that the indicated action may be directed appropriately
4. To evaluate the effectiveness of health programs and services in improving the health of the population

TROPIC

The name of 2 circles of celestial sphere; each 23.5o distant from the EQUATOR.

Tropic of cancer (the northern)
Tropic of capricorn (the southern)

Regions lying between the tropic of cancer and tropic of Capricorn

TROPICAL ZONE: The regions lying between the tropic of cancer and the tropic of Capricorn

TROPIC

Two circles of the celestial sphere, each 23.5o distant from the equator, the northern one is called the tropic of cancer, and the southern the tropic or Capricorn.

Tropical Medicine

The branch of medicine that deals with diseases, mainly of parasitic origin, of tropical countries.

DEFINITION OF HYGIENE

DEFINITION : the Science and Art of Preserving and Improving Health

• The aim is to impart knowledge and teach the means of improving one’s
health
• Deals with individuals as well as the community as a whole

Public Health

The art and science of maintaining protecting and improving the health of the people through organized community efforts.

SANITATION is the branch of public health which is concerned with keeping the external environment healthful

Distribution
•Age, sex, race, occupational and social characteristics, place of residence, ect. The pertinent characterisitcs

•the time, place, person distribution

Determinants

• The necessary causes and enabling factors
• Agent factor - necessary factors
• host factors : age, sex, race, genetic makeup, pregnancy, previous immunologic experience

Environmental factors : family size and composition, crowding, hygienic conditions, geographic, climatic and seasonal circumstances, “lifestyle” -qualities of society

HOW ???

ASKING QUESTIONS MAKING COMPARISONS

Who? Exposure and Risk (Disease)
What?
When?
Where? Before and After (Intervention)
Why?
How?

DESCRIPTIVE STUDIES

First phase of epidemiological investigation

Concerned with observing the distribution of disease or health-related characteristics

Identifying characteristics with the disease seems to be associated with objective to formulate hypothesis

Procedures in Descriptive Studies:

Defining the population to be studies, Defining the disease under study, Describing the disease by time, place, person; Measurement of disease Comparing with known indices, Formulation of etiologically hypothesis

ANALYTICAL EPIDEMIOLOGY

• Second major type of epidemiological studies
• The subject of interest is the individual within the population
• The objective is to test hypotheses
• The inference made is to the population from which the sample was drawn