Epidemiology

Epidemiology

Definition and description of epidemiology

Epidemiology is a scientific discipline that studies the distribution, the frequency, determinants, relationships, prediction and control of factors related to health and the different diseases existing in specific human populations. The epidemiology, which, strictly speaking, be called human epidemiology - occupies a special place in the intersection of biomedical sciences and social sciences, and integrates the methods and principles of these sciences to study health and control disease in well defined human groups (Porta, 2008). There is also a veterinary epidemiology, studying the same aspects in the conditions affecting the health of animals and could also speak of a zoological and botanical epidemiology, which is closely related to the ecology. An epidemiologic study describes the health and diseases that occur in a given population, for which a number of disease patterns are taken into account, which are reduced to three aspects: time, place and person: the time it takes to emerge, the time of year in which it arises and the time when it is more common, the place where there have been cases, and the most likely to be affected. The epidemiology emerged from the study of epidemics of infectious diseases, hence the name (Porta, 2008). Already in the twentieth century epidemiological studies were extended to diseases and health problems in general, analyzed by various methods, including those of demography and statistics, which are especially important (Morabia, 2004).

Steps and methods of epidemiology

The epidemiology is based on scientific method for obtaining knowledge, through epidemiological studies. Given a problem of health, and given the data available on it, a hypothesis is formulated, which translates into a series of testable consequences done through experimentation. Then performed is a research project that begins with data collection and subsequent statistical analysis, giving measures of association (odds ratio, relative risk, rate ratio), measures of effect (attributable risk) and measures of impact (etiological fraction or attributable risk proportion), both the exposed and population levels (Ray, 2010). Through the results of this research, it is possible to obtain knowledge that will make recommendations for public health, but also generate new research hypotheses (Szklo, Nieto, 2002). To schematize, the articulation of traditional epidemiology is in three areas (although they are common in cases of interaction between sectors):

Descriptive epidemiology.

Analytical epidemiology.

Experimental Epidemiology (Szklo, Nieto, 2002).

Review of routine data (demographic, census, birth, death, and surveillance records) from Pennsylvania Public health department.

The center of population of Pennsylvania is located in Perry County, in the borough of Duncannon. On the 1st of July, Pennsylvania had an estimated population of 12,742,886 people, representing an increase of 0.32% persons over the previous year census. The migration net of other states resulted in a decrease of 27,718 persons and immigration from other countries was an increase of 126,007 people. Net migration to the Commonwealth was 98,289 people. The migration of persons native to Pennsylvania resulted in a decrease of 100,000 people. In 2006, 5.00% of Pennsylvanians were foreign born (621,480 people). The state had in 2005 a poverty rate of ...