Question

Discuss the different sources of epidemiologic data and what each is used for.

Answer 1

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

It is the cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive healthcare. Epidemiologists help with study design, collection, and statistical analysis of data, amend interpretation and dissemination of results (including peer review and occasional systematic review). Epidemiology has helped develop methodology used in clinical research, public health studies, and, to a lesser extent, basic research in the biological sciences.

Major areas of epidemiological study include disease causation, transmission, outbreak investigation, disease surveillance, environmental epidemiology, forensic epidemiology, occupational epidemiology, screening, biomonitoring, and comparisons of treatment effects such as in clinical trials. Epidemiologists rely on other scientific disciplines like biology to better understand disease processes, statistics to make efficient use of the data and draw appropriate conclusions, social sciences to better understand proximate and distal causes, and engineering for exposure assessment.

There are different sources of data on health and health related conditions in the community. The World Health Organization listed the following as key sources of surveillance data:

• Mortality reports

• Morbidity reports

• Epidemic reports

• Reports of individual case investigations

• Reports of epidemic investigations

• Special surveys e.g. hospital admissions disease registers

• Information on animal reservoirs and vectors

• Demographic data

• Environmental data

Uses of Epidemiology data

To make a community diagnosis. Epidemiology helps to identify and describe health problems in a community.

To monitor continuously over a period of time the change of health in a community

To practice surveillance for a specific disease in order to be able to act quickly and so cutshort any oubreak

To investigate an outbreak of a communicable diseases analyse the reasons for it, plan a feasible remedy and carry it out& and monitor the effects of the remedy on the outbreak

To plan effective health services. effective services& interventions and remedies all depend on accurate community data.