Question

What is your understanding about the role of epidemiology in current public health?

Explain your answer. provide clear detailed opening and conclusion Be detailed and provide at least 1 supporting evidence/reference

Answer 1

• Epidemiology is the study of those factors affecting the health of a given population. Public Health is the managment of those factors. Together, they act as a concept known as preventive medicine.
• The work of communicable and non-communicable disease epidemiologists ranges from outbreak investigation to study design, data collection and analysis including the development of statistical models to test hypotheses and the documentation of results for submission to peer-reviewed journals.
• Epidemiologists may draw on a number of other scientific disciplines such as biology in understanding disease processes and social science disciplines including sociology and philosophy in order to better understand proximate and distal risk factors.The goal of public health is to improve lives through the prevention or treatment of disease.
• Epidemiological practice and the results of epidemiological analysis make a significant contribution to emerging population-based health management frameworks.Population-based health management encompasses the ability to:
• assess the health states and health needs of a target population;
• implement and evaluate interventions that are designed to improve the health of that population; and
• efficiently and effectively provide care for members of that population in a way that is consistent with the community’s cultural, policy and health resource values.
• One of the most important public health issues facing the world currently is HIV/AIDS. Tuberculosis is also reemerging as a major concern due to the rise of HIV/AIDS-related infections and the development of tuberculin strains that are resistant to standard antibiotics.
• Another major public health concern is diabetes. In 2006, according to the World Health Organization, at least 171 million people worldwide suffered from diabetes. Its incidence is increasing rapidly, and it is estimated that by the year 2030, this number will double.
• In high-income countries, the emphasis of epidemiological research is often on finding and elucidating causal relationships. In Africa, however, the application of epidemiology ‘to control health problems’ appears to be of primary interest. In this sense, ‘epidemiological research’ is often used synonymously with ‘public health research’.
• Epidemiology in African settings often still focuses on communicable disease conditions, but this focus will widen alongside the growing interest in non-communicable diseases.
• (Current status and future prospects of epidemiology and public health training and research in the WHO African region by Jean B Nachega et. al;International Journal of Epidemiology, Volume 41, Issue 6)