Epidemiology Discipline

An Epidemiology Discipline is an empirical science focused on the study epidemiological tasks (that analyses the relationships between exposures and the risk of adverse health outcomes).

• Context:
  • It can study Computational Epidemiology Tasks.
  • …
• Example(s):
  • Environmental Epidemiology,
  • Forensic Epidemiology,
  • Occupational Epidemiology,
  • …
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Biomedicine,
  • Clinical Research,
  • Pharmacology.
• See: Medical Science, Cause, Health, Disease, Population, Public Health, Evidence-Based Practice, Risk Factor, Preventive Healthcare, Statistical Analysis, Peer Review, Systematic Review, Methodology, Clinical Research.

---

---

References

2021a

• (Wikipedia, 2021) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epidemiology Retrieved:2021-12-26.
  • Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the distribution (who, when, and where), patterns and determinants of health and disease conditions in defined populations.

    It is a cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive healthcare. Epidemiologists help with study design, collection, and statistical analysis of data, amend interpretation and dissemination of results (including peer review and occasional systematic review). Epidemiology has helped develop methodology used in clinical research, public health studies, and, to a lesser extent, basic research in the biological sciences. Major areas of epidemiological study include disease causation, transmission, outbreak investigation, disease surveillance, environmental epidemiology, forensic epidemiology, occupational epidemiology, screening, biomonitoring, and comparisons of treatment effects such as in clinical trials. Epidemiologists rely on other scientific disciplines like biology to better understand disease processes, statistics to make efficient use of the data and draw appropriate conclusions, social sciences to better understand proximate and distal causes, and engineering for exposure assessment. Epidemiology, literally meaning "the study of what is upon the people", is derived , suggesting that it applies only to human populations. However, the term is widely used in studies of zoological populations (veterinary epidemiology), although the term “epizoology” is available, and it has also been applied to studies of plant populations (botanical or plant disease epidemiology). The distinction between "epidemic" and "endemic" was first drawn by Hippocrates, to distinguish between diseases that are "visited upon" a population (epidemic) from those that "reside within" a population (endemic). The term "epidemiology" appears to have first been used to describe the study of epidemics in 1802 by the Spanish physician Villalba in Epidemiología Española. Epidemiologists also study the interaction of diseases in a population, a condition known as a syndemic.

    The term epidemiology is now widely applied to cover the description and causation of not only epidemic, infectious disease, but of disease in general, including related conditions. Some examples of topics examined through epidemiology include as high blood pressure, mental illness and obesity. Therefore, this epidemiology is based upon how the pattern of the disease causes change in the function of human beings.

2021b

• (Wikipedia, 2021) ⇒ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glossary_of_clinical_research#E Retrieved:2021-12-26.
  • QUOTE: Epidemiology
    • The branch of medical science that deals with the study of incidence and distribution and control of a disease in a population. (NLM)
    • The study of the patterns, causes, and control of disease in groups of people. (NCI)

2010

• (Hagan & West, 2010) ⇒ Anthony O' Hagan, and ‎Mike West, editors. (2010). “The Oxford Handbook of Applied Bayesian Analysis. ISBN:0191613894
  • QUOTE: Epidemiology is focused on the study of relationships between exposures and the risk of adverse health outcomes or diseases. A better understanding of the factors leading to disease is fundamental in developing better strategies for disease prevention and treatment. …

---