Question

Compare and contrast the similarities and dissimilarities between managerial, descriptive and analytical epidemiology branches.

Answer 1

Descriptive epidemiology may distinguish similarities within cases and by period, location and individual within populations. Through these findings, epidemiologists establish theories about the origins of these phenomena and the reasons that raise disease risk. Epidemiologists, in other words, can use concise epidemiology to produce hypotheses, but very occasionally to check such hypotheses. Epidemiologists have to turn to theoretical epidemiology for this. A comparison category is core feature in analytical epidemiology. Consider a major epidemic of hepatitis A that occurred in Pennsylvania in 2003.(38) Researchers noticed that almost all of the case-patients had eaten at a single restaurant within 2–6 weeks (i.e., the usual hepatitis A incubation period) before the onset of illness. Although the investigators have been able to narrow down their restaurant theories and have been able to remove food preparers and servers as the cause, they have not identified which specific food could have been poisoned. The investigators questioned the case-patients which foods they had consumed in the restaurant, but that only suggested which foods were common.

Consequently, the authorities even recruited and questioned a reference or test group — a sample of individuals who had eaten at the restaurant over the same time but did not get ill. Of the 133 items on the hospital menu, the most significant discrepancy between the case and control categories was the percentage who consumed salsa (94% of cases eat salsa, relative to 39% of controls). More investigation into the products in the salsa included green onions as the cause of contamination. The Food and Drug Administration released an warning soon afterwards to the public on green onions and the possibility of hepatitis A. Such intervention came a direct reaction to the persuasive findings of the empirical epidemiology, which contrasted case-patients' experience background with that of an acceptable community of observations.

The characteristic is assumed to be correlated with the disease because authorities notice that individuals with a specific characteristic are more probable than others without the characteristic of acquiring a disease. The function may be a demographic element such as age , ethnicity, or sex; a constitutional aspect such as blood type or immune status; activity or conduct such as smoking or consuming salsa; or conditions such as residing near a hazardous waste site. Identifying disease-related causes lets health authorities better plan practices in avoiding and managing infectious safety. It also directs more study on the origins of the illness.

Analytical epidemiology, however, is concerned with looking for triggers and consequences, or the why and how. Epidemiologists use computational epidemiology to measure the correlation between conditions and outcomes and to check the causal interaction hypothesis. Epidemiology alone, it has been noted, will never confirm that a certain event has produced a certain result. However, epidemiology often provides sufficient evidence to take appropriate preventive and control measures.

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