EPIDEMIOLOGY

• Primary care physician - concerned with the course of disease in an individual patient
• Epidemiologist - A public health scientist, who is responsible for carrying out all useful and effective activities needed for successful epidemiology practice
• Epidemiology - study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states and events in a population and the application of this study to control health problems
• Cholera - Rampant during the early 1800s in London, causing thousands of deaths in the area.
• John Snow - Best known for his work tracing the source of the cholera outbreak
• Public health surveillance - ongoing, systematic collection, analysis interpretation, and dissemination of health data to help guide public health decision-making and action.
• 3 types of epidemiologic study

  • Experimental epidemiology
  • Analytical epidemiology
  • Descriptive epidemiology
• Core epidemiologic functions

  • Public health surveillance
  • Field investigation
  • Analytic studies
  • Evaluation
  • Linkages
  • Policy development
• Sporadic disease - Intermittent occurrence of a few isolated & unrelated cases in a given locality
• Endemic disease - diseases that occur regularly in a population with the usual number of cases in a given locality
• Epidemic - An unexpectedly large number of cases of disease in a particular population in relatively short period of time
• Pandemic - An outbreak of disease over a wide geographical area such as a continent
• Epizootic - Disease outbreaks in animal populations
• Epizoodemic - Disease outbreaks involving both animals and humans
• Statistics - systematic approach of obtaining, organizing & analyzing numerical facts so that conclusion may be drawn from them
• Vital statistics - systematic study of vital events such as births, illnesses, marriages, divorce, separation & deaths
• statistics of morbidity and mortality indicate the health of a community & the success or failure of health work.
• Sources of standardized data

  • Philippine census
  • Statistical Abstract of the Philippines
  • Vital statistics
  • Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports
  • National Health Surveys
  • Field Health Services and Information System (FHSIS)
• Field Health Services & Information System - recording and reporting system in public health care in the Philippines
• Monitoring - It is the regular collection of information about all project activities.
• Evaluation - keeps track of key outcomes & impacts related to the project components, assessing whether the objectives, aims & goals are being achieved.