Table of Contents
What is descriptive and analytic epidemiology?
Descriptive Epidemiology refers to the studies that generate hypotheses and answer the questions who, what, when and where of the disease or infection. Analytic Epidemiology refers to the studies which are conducted to test for hypotheses and to generate conclusions on the particular disease.
What do descriptive epidemiological studies identify?
As noted earlier, descriptive epidemiology can identify patterns among cases and in populations by time, place and person. From these observations, epidemiologists develop hypotheses about the causes of these patterns and about the factors that increase risk of disease.
What is an example of descriptive epidemiology?
The time variable is concerned with variation in the occurrence of disease in time and its seasonality or periodicity. A hypothetical example of a descriptive epidemiological study is the investigation of a group of workers in a factory who have what is suspected to be environmentally acquired lupus.
What is the difference between descriptive and analytical?
The purpose of descriptive writing is to present facts and information, whereas the purpose of analytical writing is to compare, analyze and evaluate something. The language is richer in descriptive writing while the content is more structured and full of logic for a conclusion in analytical writing.
Why is descriptive epidemiology important?
Descriptive epidemiology provides a way of organizing and analyzing data on health and disease in order to understand variations in disease frequency geographically and over time and how disease varies among people based on a host of personal characteristics (person, place, and time).
How does descriptive epidemiology differ from analytic epidemiology?
Generally speaking, descriptive studies deal with the “what” questions, for example, describing “what happened” in terms of disease occurrence, while analytic studies ask the “why” questions, for example, why some people develop disease and others don’t.
What are the three characteristics of descriptive epidemiology?
Descriptive epidemiology searches for patterns by examining characteristics of person, place, & time . These characteristics are carefully considered when a disease outbreak occurs, because they provide important clues regarding the source of the outbreak.
How is descriptive epidemiology applied in public health nursing?
The purpose of descriptive epidemiology is to identify the priority health issues and potential risk factors. It may be applied to monitor trends across time, evaluate policies and practices, identify outbreaks or epidemics, and determine the way of allocation of resources to best address health issues.
What are the characteristics of descriptive epidemiology?
What is a descriptive observational study?
Descriptive studies are observational studies which describe the patterns of disease occurrence in relation to variables such as person, place and time. They are often the first step or initial enquiry into a new topic, event, disease or condition.
What is descriptive epidemiology in public health?
Descriptive epidemiology aims to describe the distributions of diseases and determinants. It provides a way of organizing and analyzing these data to describe the variations in disease frequency among populations by geographical areas and over time (i.e., person, place, and time).
What are the main features of Epidemiology?
A key feature of epidemiology is the measurement of disease outcomes in relation to a population at risk. The population at risk is the group of people, healthy or sick, who would be counted as cases if they had the disease being studied.
What is epidemiology and why is it important?
Epidemiology is the study of how diseases affect the health and illness of populations. It aims to act in the interest of public health and preventive medicine. It also important in public health research.
What are the aims of Epidemiology?
To describe disease and other health related event patterns in human populations.
What are the two types of Epidemiology?
There are two main types of epidemiological studies: experimental studies and observational studies and both of them are divided into several subtypes. Observational studies are one of the most common types of epidemiological studies. They comprise of simple questioning, medical examinations and routine laboratory tests or X-rays.