What are the key 6 characteristics of epidemiology?

What are the key 6 characteristics of epidemiology?

It extracts six types of epidemiological characteristic: design of the study, population that has been studied, exposure, outcome, covariates and effect size.

Which study design is best?

Hierarchy of Evidence

Clinical question	Suggested best study design
Diagnosis	prospective, blind comparison to a gold standard
Therapy	RCT > cohort > case control > case series
Prevention	RCT > cohort study > case control > case series
Prognosis	cohort study > case control > case series

What are the 5 types of research methods?

Research methods

• Experiments.
• Surveys.
• Questionnaires.
• Interviews.
• Case studies.
• Participant and non-participant observation.
• Observational trials.
• Studies using the Delphi method.

What is an example of a cohort?

Examples of cohorts commonly used in sociological research include birth cohorts (a group of people born during the same period of time, like a generation) and educational cohorts (a group of people who begin schooling or an educational program at the same time, like this year’s freshman class of college students).

What is a risk in epidemiology?

In epidemiology, risk has been defined as “the probability of an event during a specified period of time” (2, p. 10). Below, we define risk as a function of time, allowing for competing risks (hereafter referred to as competing events) and more than 1 treatment (or exposure level) of interest.

What are the strengths of a cohort study?

Strengths

• Multiple outcomes can be measured for any one exposure.
• Can look at multiple exposures.
• Exposure is measured before the onset of disease (in prospective cohort studies).
• Good for measuring rare exposures, for example among different occupations.
• Demonstrate direction of causality.

What is the role of epidemiology in public health?

Epidemiology identifies the distribution of diseases, factors underlying their source and cause, and methods for their control; this requires an understanding of how political, social and scientific factors intersect to exacerbate disease risk, which makes epidemiology a unique science.

What is the strongest type of study?

I. A well-designed randomized controlled trial, where feasible, is generally the strongest study design for evaluating an intervention’s effectiveness.

What are the three components of epidemiology?

The epidemiologic triangle is made up of three parts: agent, host and environment.

What is the best definition of epidemiology?

By definition, epidemiology is the study (scientific, systematic, and data-driven) of the distribution (frequency, pattern) and determinants (causes, risk factors) of health-related states and events (not just diseases) in specified populations (neighborhood, school, city, state, country, global).

How do you identify a cohort study?

Study Design A well-designed cohort study can provide powerful results. In a cohort study, an outcome or disease-free study population is first identified by the exposure or event of interest and followed in time until the disease or outcome of interest occurs (Figure 3A).

What are the branches of epidemiology?

• Cancer Epidemiology.
• Cardiovascular Epidemiology.
• Clinical Epidemiology.
• Environmental and Occupational Epidemiology.
• Epidemiologic Methods.
• Epidemiology of Aging.
• Genetic Epidemiology and Statistical Genetics.
• Infectious Disease Epidemiology.

What are the functions of epidemiology?

Section 4: Core Epidemiologic Functions. In the mid-1980s, five major tasks of epidemiology in public health practice were identified: public health surveillance, field investigation, analytic studies, evaluation, and linkages.

What are the advantages of a cohort study?

A major advantage of cohort studies in general is the possibility to study multiple exposures and multiple outcomes in one cohort. Even rare exposures can be studied, for the index group can be selected on this exposure.

What is an example of a cohort study?

One famous example of a cohort study is the Nurses’ Health Study, a large, long-running analysis of women’s health, originally set up in 1976 to investigate the potential long term consequences of the use of oral contraceptives.

How do I know what type of study?

Ask a research question. Identify a research population or group. Describe a research method. Test or measure something….Examples of article types that are NOT research studies include:

1. literature reviews.
2. meta-analyses.
3. editorials.
4. case studies.
5. comments or letters relating to previously-published research studies.

How does epidemiology improve health?

It is important as it can be used to significantly improve the health of Australians by identifying the prevalence of a condition and morbidity and mortality rates of that condition, giving researchers, health department officials and governments indicators of the existence of health problems within a community.

What do you learn in epidemiology?

Epidemiology is the study of diseases in given populations. Epidemiologists examine how and where disease outbreaks start, how diseases are transmitted among individuals in a population and how to effectively treat those diseases.

What skills do you need to be an epidemiologist?

Epidemiologists should also possess the following specific qualities:

• Communication skills. Epidemiologists must use their speaking and writing skills to inform the public and community leaders of public health risks.
• Critical-thinking skills.
• Detail oriented.
• Math and statistical skills.
• Teaching skills.

What kind of study is a cohort study?

Cohort studies are a type of longitudinal study—an approach that follows research participants over a period of time (often many years). Specifically, cohort studies recruit and follow participants who share a common characteristic, such as a particular occupation or demographic similarity.

What are the characteristics of a cohort study?

The characteristic feature of a cohort study is that the investigator identifies subjects at a point in time when they do not have the outcome of interest and compares the incidence of the outcome of interest among groups of exposed and unexposed (or less exposed) subjects.

What is the weakest study design?

As the exposure status and outcome of interest information is collected in a single moment in time often by surveys, cross-sectional study design cannot provide cause-effect relationship and is the weakest of the observational designs.