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Year 3 - Public Health > The Epidemiological Approach > Flashcards

Flashcards in The Epidemiological Approach Deck (16)
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1
Q

What is epidemiology

A

Epidemiology is the study of the incidence, distribution and determinants of diseases in humans, with a view to identifying what causes a particular disease and by doing so discovering ways of preventing the disease.

2
Q

how do you define epidemiology

A
  • finding the cause of disease and preventing disease
3
Q

How could you investigate the relationship between smoking and lung cancer

A
  • Prospective (cohort) study

- retrospective (case control) study

4
Q

What are the problems with a prospective (cohort) study

A
  • Expensive and lengthy

- Even with these numbers there would not be enough cases to draw firm conclusions

5
Q

What are the problems with a retrospective (case control study)

A
  • recall bias
6
Q

people with lung cancer are…

A

People with lung cancer are 15 times more likely to be a cigarette smoker than people without lung cancer

7
Q

How can you link diet and ischaemic heart disease

A
  • look at serum cholesterol levels
  • increased in saturated fat intake causes an increase in serum cholesterol levels
  • increase in serum cholesterol levels causes an increase in ischaemic heart disease
  • can do two separate studies to link increased in saturated faty and serum cholesterol levels and anotehr study in serum cholesterol levels and ischaemic heart disease
8
Q

What is a Prospective Cohort study

A

A research study that follows over time groups of individuals who are alike in many ways but differ by a certain characteristic (for example, female nurses who smoke and those who do not smoke) and compares them for a particular outcome (such as lung cancer).

9
Q

What is a Retrospective case control study

A

A retrospective case control study is one that uses existing data to compare two groups. For example, people who have developed a disease might be compared with a group of people who have not.

10
Q

Most diseases are a mixture of

A

nature and nurture

11
Q

what is PKU

A
  • PKU is an inborn error of metabolism in which there is a congenital lack of the enzyme phenylalanine hydroxylase.
12
Q

Describe the pathophysiology of PKU

A
  • this is caused by a lack of the enzyme phenylalanine
  • this means that without pehnylalanine hydroxylase phenylalanine can get converted to keto acids which are toxic and can cause mental retardation
13
Q

Is PKU a genetic or environmental disease

A
  • Normally it is converted to tyrosine which is converted to melanin, but without phenylalanine hydroxylase phenylalanine gets converted to keto acids which are toxic and can cause mental retardation
  • Therefore, from the geneticist view the disease in 100% genetic
  • But the disease can be completely prevented by restricting dietary phenylalanine
    • therefore the epidemiologist view is the disease is 1000% environmental
14
Q

The cause of a disease does not have to .

A

add up to 100%

15
Q

describe how you would work out the percentage of disease that is prevented

example: Preventing heart disease with three drugs
- Anti-platelet drug (aspirin) prevents 30%
- Cholesterol lowering drug (statin) prevents 60%
- Blood pressure lowering drug prevents 20%
in 100 cases of the disease

A

= there are 100 cases of the disease so 30 cases will be prevented by aspirin

  • this leaves 70 of which 42 (60%) would be prevented by the statin
  • this leaves 28 of which 6 (20%) would be prevented by the blood pressure lowering drug leaving 22
  • so 78% would be prevented (30+42+6)
16
Q

What is the definition of a cause of a disease

A

The CAUSE OF A DISEASE is a factor that is associated with the incidence of the disease so that if the intensity or prevalence of the factor in a population changes, the incidence of the disease changes in ways that cannot be explained by changes in other factors.