What is the meaning of Epidemiology? Concept, Definition of Epidemiology

Definition of Epidemiology

1. Meaning of Epidemiology

The dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE) defines epidemiology as the treaty that focuses on epidemics. It is a discipline of science devoted to the analysis of the causes, linkages, how they are distributed, regularity and control of various factors related to health.
epidemiology uses the resources of health sciences (such as medicine) and social sciences to study the welfare of the people of a particular community. It is part of preventive medicine and helps the design and development of public health policies.
Epidemics are a major point of interest for epidemiology. It is known as epidemic disease that affects a lot of people at once and spreads in a given geographical area during a certain time period. Its effect can often be harmful.
's an epidemic of patients represents a figure that exceeds the average expected by specialists. For example: if a country X are detected 40 cases of illness per month, during a pandemic that number can be multiplied several times, which is a higher incidence of the projected level.
Epidemiology attempt to link cause and effect between exposure and disease. In analyzing the social causes that lead to the development of an epidemic, epidemiology can develop prevention campaigns and respond more effectively to those affected. So this discipline is key to community health.

The epidemiologist and the method used

The epidemiologist is devoted to epidemiology and its object of study is the way in which a disease is distributed in terms of time and place in a society, and can determine if it has spread or has reduced its presence, comparing how their frequency among different areas and if people of both affected area have different characteristics in which the disease manifests. studied points epidemiology are: * Demographics of those affected (sex, age and ethnic group belonging) * Biological aspects (antibodies, enzymes, blood cells, physiological functions ... and that might serve to understand the effect that causes disease) * Social and economic aspects (economic, activities performed, circumstances of birth ...) * Genetics (blood and family history in similar diseases) * Habits (use of drugs, cigarettes, alcohol or any medication, and level of physical activity and diet) for the development of this science uses the scientific method and is to conduct a comprehensive study on the lives of affected individuals, individually and collectively, in the community or in part which is sick. addition, proposes epidemiology prevention plans for future infections, so to prevent the disease from spreading acquiring highly harmful characteristics, but could become a pandemic or epidemic and that will jeopardize the survival of the group. In epidemiological method is one that has been designed by epidemiologists to help obtaining a hypothesis for undertaking research. Through this method attempts to eliminate all possible causes already known, to establish a rational study and arrive at conclusions that effective.

2. Definition of Epidemiology

The epidemiology traditionally conceived as experimental science within the health sciences, studying epidemics, from the Greek word "ἐπιδημία" composed of "epi" means "on" and "demos" = " people. " "Logos" is the study of the phenomenon.
was John Snow who made ​​the greatest contributions to the development of this science (though others had already made ​​contributions since the Renaissance) to specifically study the cholera epidemic affecting London in 1854, and recognize water as its main agent propagation. I discovered to produce a map which indicated the homes of those affected to find the problem in common, it was water pollution. During that time only charge epidemiology of infectious diseases.
currently are under study of epidemiology, human disease in general, not only infectious, within a specific population group, which is affected in whole, in terms of its distribution, prediction, which determine the causes, frequency, control, and developing strategies to combat them, if possible.
patterns of the phenomenon to be considered are: the time period it takes to appear, the time that occurs, the age range and other characteristics of the affected individual (sex, race, health conditions) the amount of land affected and the type of place or environment where preferably develops. Make statistics, and intervenes on that data.
Epidemiology is a valuable tool for public health because diseases studied in terms of subjects and time and environmental characteristics, it can carry out a plan to prevent, combat or mitigate their adverse effects.

3. Concept of Epidemiology

Epidemiology is a scientific discipline that studies the distribution, frequency, determinants, relationships, predictions and control of health-related factors and the different existing disease specific human populations. The epidemiology, which, strictly speaking, be called human epidemiology, occupies a special place in the intersection between the biomedical and social sciences, and integrates the methods and principles of these sciences to study health and disease control in human groups well defined. There is also a veterinary epidemiology, which studies the same aspects in conditions that affect the health of animals, and could also speak of a zoological and botanical epidemiology, ecology intimately related.
studied in epidemiology and describe health and disease that occur in a given population, for which takes into account a number of disease patterns, which are reduced to three aspects: time, place and person: the time it takes to emerge, the season in which arises and the time when it is most frequent, the place (city, population, the country, the zone type) where cases have been filed, and the most likely to be affected (children, elderly, etc.., as appropriate).
Epidemiology emerged from the study of infectious disease epidemics, hence its name. Already in the twentieth century epidemiological studies were extended to disease and health problems in general, analyzed by various methods, including those of demography and statistics are especially important.