What is epidemiology? Why is this important to community health? Provide an example of its importance from your community.According toWorld Health Organization(2011)," Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events (including disease), and the application of this study to the control of diseases and other health problems. Various methods can be used to carry out epidemiological investigations: surveillance and descriptive studies can be used to study distribution; analytical studies are used to study determinants”(Epidemiology,para. 1). The WHO website posts a Weekly Epidemiology Record (WER) that is a resource for quickly and accurately accessing information about disease outbreaks and communicable diseases. The website also posts data tables by states, country statistics and publications with major analyses. You can even find the WHO website on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/WorldHealthOrganization?v=wall Epidemiology is important to community health because epidemiologists can determine patterns by looking at persons and places or frequency. Studying groups may assist with determining causes or etiology. The two types of rates are incidence and prevalence. An example might be the incidence of lung cancer is 100 per 100,000 per year (University of Phoenix, 2010)References:World Health Organization.(2011).Health topics.Retrieved from http://www.who.int/topics/epidemiology/en University of Phoenix. (2010). Public Health 101 Chapter 2 Evidence-based Public Health. Retrieved from University of Phoenix, HCS 457 website.Response 2Epidemiologyis a discipline that employs scientific methods and approaches to examine howdiseaseis spread or distributedin a population.It is also a componentused in an evidence-based health care approachconsistent with theProblem, Etiology Recomendation Implementation (PERI)process. Epidemiologistinvestigate person and place factorsto identify patternsasassociated with disease prevalance and frequency. Group associations, risk indicators and markers are types of datacollected and evaluated by epidemiologists to determine authenticity (real or artifactual). Data is summarized and presented in terms of incidence or prevalencerates.Communityhealth uses epidemiological studiesto determine populations andgroups that may have a higher susceptibility to certain diseases,conditions or environmental factors. These "at-risk"populations are examined in terms of incidence(chance of developing adisease over time) and prevalence (the number of individuals with a diseasein a population).Together, these rates assistcommunityhealth with determining mortality rates,where to focus resources,how tomonitor effectiveness of existing programsand in reporting results to state and federal agencies.The Centers for DiseaseControl (CDC) compilesanddisseminates epidemiologicalstatistics worldwide to assist otherorganizations like the WorldHealth Organization to help fight the spreadofdisease overseas.Local public healthbenefits from epidemiologicalinvestigations to fight the spread of location-specific diseases and conditions. Mining regions rely on reports focusing on air quality effectsfor coal dust. Urban areas mayrely on information regarding diseases related to drug abuse(HIV/AIDS andhepatitis). Suburban areas, such and mine, may rely on studiesfocusing on teenage drinking,pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease.Reference:Riegelman, R. (2010). Public Health 101: Healthy people - healthy populations. Sudbury, MA Jones and
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