Epidemiology Exam 1

Front 1

Any departure, subjective or objective, from a state of physiological or psychological well-being is called what?
A. Illness
B. Sickness
C. Morbidity
D. Disability

Back 1

C. Morbidity

Front 2

A term that refers indiscriminately to incidence or prevalence rates of disease is what?

Back 2

Morbidity rate

Front 3

Mortality is a good index for risk or incidence of disease under what two conditions?

Back 3

Case-fatality is high and duration of disease is short

Front 4

What are the three limitations of mortality data?

Back 4

1. Based on underlying cause of death recorded in death certificates
2. International comparison difficult because of variations in quality of data on death certificates
3. Comparisons across time difficult because Internation Classification of Diseases (ICD) was modified over the years

Front 5

What are the four errors that explain trends or differences in mortality, relating to the numerator of the equation?

Back 5

Errors in diagnosis
Errors in age
Changes in coding rules
Changes in classification

Front 6

What are the three errors that explain trends or differences in mortality, relating to the denominator of the equation?

Back 6

Errors in counting populations
Errors in classifying by demographic characteristics (e.g. age, race, gender, etc)
Differences in percentages of populations at risk

Front 7

What are the three main assumptions of disease

Back 7

1. Disease does not occur randomly.

2. Non-random aggregations of disease are manifested along measurement axes of:
Time
Place
Person

3. Disease has identifiable causes which can be altered, thereby preventing disease from developing.

Front 8

Non-random aggregations of disease are manifested along measurement axes of what three things?

Back 8

Time, person, and place

Front 9

“Specified populations” are those with _________ characteristics.

Back 9

Identifiable

Front 10

What are defined as the "actions aimed at eradicating, eliminating, or minimizing the impact of disease and disability, or if none of these is feasible, retarding the progress of disease and disability?"

Back 10

Prevention

Front 11

What are the four stages on the spectrum of disease?

Back 11

1. Stage of susceptibility
2. Stage of sub-clinical disease
3. Stage of clinical disease
4. Stage of recovery, disability, or death

Front 12

During which stage of the spectrum of disease is the disease itself usually diagnosed?

Back 12

Stage of clinical disease

Front 13

In which stage of the spectrum of disease do symptoms appear?

Back 13

Stage of sub-clinical disease

Front 14

In ______ data collection, the researcher in question collects the data using methods such as questionnaires, interviews, focus group, observation, case studies and diaries.

Back 14

Primary

Front 15

In ________ data collection, data from censuses, large surveys and organizational records have already been collected and possibly processed by people other than the researcher in question.

Back 15

Secondary

Front 16

Which kind of epidemiological study is concerned with and designed only to describe the existing distribution of variables, without regard to causal or other hypotheses?

Back 16

Descriptive

Front 17

Which kind of epidemiological study is designed to examine associations, commonly putative or hypothesized causal relationships?

Back 17

Analytic

Front 18

Which kind of epidemiological study does not involve any intervention, experimental or otherwise?

Back 18

Observational

Front 19

In which kind of epidemiological study is nature allowed to take its course, with changes in one characteristic being studied in relation to changes in other characteristics?

Back 19

Observational

Front 20

Which kind of epidemiological study have conditions that are under the direct control of the investigator?

Back 20

Experimental

Front 21

In which kind of epidemiological study is a population is selected for a planned trial of a regimen whose effects are measured by comparing the outcome of the regimen in the experimental group with the outcome of the regimen in the control group?

Back 21

Experimental

Front 22

Two other names for a cohort study are what?

Back 22

Prospective or retrospective

Front 23

What is another name for an ecological study?

Back 23

Correlational

Front 24

What is a supposition, arrived at from observation or reflection, that leads to refutable predictions or any conjecture cast in a form that will allow it to be tested and refuted?

Back 24

A hypothesis

Front 25

Random error is also called _____.

Back 25

Chance

Front 26

A systematic error is known as _____.

Back 26

Bias

Front 27

In epidemiology, we assess the validity of observed statistical associations by excluding possible alternative explanations such as what three things?

Back 27

Chance, bias, confounding

Front 28

In the usual pattern of reasoning, we judge whether the observed association represents a cause-effect relationship between _____ and ______.

Back 28

Exposure, outcome

Front 29

Who was the father of occupational health?

Back 29

Ramazzini

Front 30

Who wrote "De Morbis Artificum Diatriba"?

Back 30

Ramazzini

Front 31

What is the study of populations, especially with reference to size, density, fertility, mortality, growth, age distribution, migration and vital statistics, and the interaction of these with social and economic conditions?

Back 31

Demography

Front 32

Who pioneered the demographic approach with a series of weekly bills entitled, "Natural and Political Observations Upon the Bills of Mortality" in the mid 1600's?

Back 32

John Graunt

Front 33

Who developed the first empirical life tables?

Back 33

Haley

Front 34

Who presented the first clear and coherent germ theory of disease?

Back 34

Fracastoro

Front 35

Who wrote, "General Report on the Sanitary Conditions of the Labouring Population of Great Britain?"

Back 35

Chadwick

Front 36

What three things did the Massachusetts Sanitary Commission recommend?

Back 36

1. A census
2. Standardization of categories for causes of death and disease
3. Collection of data by age, gender, occupation, socioeconomic status and locality

Front 37

Who was the head of the Massachusetts Sanitary Commission?

Back 37

Shattuck

Front 38

Who was the founder of Modern Concepts of Surveillance?

Back 38

William Farr

Front 39

Who conducted an experiment which showed that scurvy could be treated and prevented with limes, lemons, and oranges?

Back 39

Lind

Front 40

Who was the father of clinical epidemiology?

Back 40

Louis

Front 41

What is a physiological/psychological dysfunction?

Back 41

Disease

Front 42

What is a subjective state of the person who feels aware of not being well?

Back 42

Illness

Front 43

What is a state of social dysfunction, i.e. a role that the individual assumes when ill?

Back 43

Sickness

Front 44

What is the loss or abnormality of psychological, physiological, or anatomical structure or function?

Back 44

Impairment

Front 45

What is any restriction or lack of ability to perform an activity (resulting from an impairment) in a manner or within the range considered normal for a human being?

Back 45

Disability

Front 46

What is a disadvantage for a given individual, resulting from an impairment or disability, that limits or prevents the performance of a role that is normal (depending on age, sex, social and cultural practice) for that individual?

Back 46

Handicap

Front 47

What is the arrangement of diseases into groups having common characteristics?

Back 47

Disease classification

Front 48

What is the science of causes or causality?

Back 48

Etiology

Front 49

What is the term for the postulated mechanisms by which the etiologic agent produces disease?

Back 49

Pathogenesis

Front 50

What is the presumptive identification of unrecognized disease or defect by the application of tests, examinations or other procedures which can be applied rapidly called?

Back 50

Screening

Front 51

What is the process of determining health status and the factors responsible for producing it?

Back 51

Diagnosis

Front 52

What is abnormality indicative of disease, discoverable on examination of the patient?

Back 52

A sign

Front 53

What is the term for any morbid phenomenon or departure from the normal, structure, function, or sensation, experienced by the patient and indicative of disease?

Back 53

A symptom

Front 54

A sign is considered an ________ indication of disease.

Back 54

Objective

Front 55

A symptom is considered a ______ indication of disease.

Back 55

Subjective

Front 56

_____ disease is a disease with no signs or symptoms because they have not yet developed.

Back 56

Preclinical

Front 57

______ disease is a condition in which disease is detectable by special tests but does not reveal itself by signs or symptoms.

Back 57

Subclinical

Front 58

______ disease is a disease with signs and/or symptoms.

Back 58

Clinical

Front 59

______ is a symptom complex in which the symptoms and/or signs coexist more frequently that would be expected by chance on the assumption of independence.

Back 59

Syndrome

Front 60

What is the period between the time when a disease is capable of yielding a positive screening test and the appearance of clinical symptoms and/or signs?

Back 60

The detectable pre-clinical stage

Front 61

What is an infection with no active multiplication of the agent?

Back 61

Latent disease

Front 62

In latent disease, is the viable organism or the genetic message present in the host?

Back 62

Genetic message

Front 63

In the "iceberg effect" of the spectrum of disease, which stage is the tip?

Back 63

Clinical (detected and diagnosed)

Front 64

A measure of infectivity of an agent is called what?

Back 64

Secondary attack rate

Front 65

What is the property of an organism that determines the extent to which overt disease is produced in an infected population, or the power of an organism to produce disease?

Back 65

Pathogenicity

Front 66

What is the term for the degree of pathogenicity?

Back 66

Virulence

Front 67

What is the term for the disease-evoking power of a microorganism in a given host?

Back 67

Virulence

Front 68

What is the term for a person or living animal, including birds and arthropods, that affords subsistence or lodgment to an infectious agent under natural conditions?

Back 68

Host

Front 69

Age, sex, race, religion, etc. are all examples of what type of factors?

Back 69

Host factors

Front 70

Biological, social, and behavioral characteristics of hosts that are relevant to health are called what?

Back 70

Host factors

Front 71

Water, milk, food, temperature, noise, crowding, etc. are all considered what type of factors?

Back 71

Environmental

Front 72

What are the two modes of transmission of disease?

Back 72

Direct or indirect

Front 73

Respiratory, gastrointestinal, perinatal, etc. are all ___ of transmission.

Back 73

Routes

Front 74

What are the three methods of indirect transmission of disease?

Back 74

Airborne, vehicle-born, and vector-born

Front 75

What is the constant presence of a disease or infectious agent within a given geographical area or population group?

Back 75

Endemic

Front 76

What is the occurrence in a community or region of cases of an illness, specific health-related behavior, or other health-related events clearly in excess of normal expectancy?

Back 76

Epidemic

Front 77

What is an epidemic occurring worldwide, or over a very wide area, crossing international boundaries, and usually affecting a large number of people?

Back 77

Pandemic

Front 78

An _______ is an epidemic limited to localized increase in the incidence of a disease, e.g. in a village, town, or closed institution

Back 78

Outbreak

Front 79

In an outbreak, _____ is the numerator and _____ ___ ____ is the denominator.

Back 79

Cases, population at risk

Front 80

What is the term for a measure of the number of infections produced, on average, by an infected individual in early stages of an epidemic, when virtually all contacts are susceptible?

Back 80

Basic reproductive rate

Front 81

What is the term for the proportion of total possible contacts between infectious cases and susceptibles that lead to new infections?

Back 81

Transmission parameter

Front 82

What are the three key factors for ideal conditions of herd immunity?

Back 82

Single host species
Direct transmission
Total immunity

Front 83

What is the term for any attribute, phenomenon, or event that can have different values?

Back 83

Variable

Front 84

What is another name for the magnitude of measurements?

Back 84

Value

Front 85

What is the term for the range of possible values for a measurement?

Back 85

Measurement scale

Front 86

Observations of information characterized by measurement on a categorical scale are called what?

Back 86

Qualitative

Front 87

Data in numerical quantities, such as continuous measurements or counts are called what?

Back 87

Quantitative

Front 88

What type of data can be arranged into naturally occurring or arbitrarily selected groups or sets of values, as opposed to data in which there are no naturally occurring breaks in continuity?

Back 88

Discrete

Front 89

What is the term for the data with a potentially infinite number of possible values along a continuum?

Back 89

Continuous

Front 90

What is a measure ranging from 0 to 1, of the degree of belief in a hypothesis or statement?

Back 90

Probability

Front 91

What is the basic element to which probability can be applied?

Back 91

An event

Front 92

What are the four characteristics of an event?

Back 92

1. The basic element to which probability can be applied.
2. The result of an observation or experiment.
3. The description of some potential outcome.
4. Represented by uppercase letters A, B, C etc

Front 93

P (A) = m/N (m is the number of times an event occurs under N times it is possible) is called what?

Back 93

Probability frequency

Front 94

What is the term for a variable that can assume a number of different values such that any particular outcome is determined by chance?

Back 94

Random variable

Front 95

What is the name for the variable that can assume only a finite or countable number of outcomes?

Back 95

Discrete random variable

Front 96

What is the term for a variable that can take any value within a specified interval or continuum?

Back 96

Continuous random variable

Front 97

In which type of probability distribution does it specify all possible outcomes of the random variable along with the probability that each will occur?

Back 97

Discrete

Front 98

In which type of probability distribution does it allow us to determine the probabilities associated with specified ranges of values?

Back 98

Continuous

Front 99

All the inhabitants of a given country or area considered together is called what?

Back 99

A population

Front 100

What is the term for a selected subset of a population?

Back 100

A sample

Front 101

What are the three key factors of being "random"?

Back 101

Governed by chance
Not completely determined by other factors
Not deterministic

Front 102

What is the term for a variable whose value is sought by means of evidence from samples?

Back 102

Parameter

Front 103

What is the term for the resulting assigned value based on evidence from samples?

Back 103

Statistic

Front 104

What is the process of selecting a number of subjects from all the subjects in a particular group, or “universe"?

Back 104

Sampling

Front 105

That part of the total estimation error of a parameter caused by the random nature of the sample is called what?

Back 105

Sampling error

Front 106

Systematic error due to study of non-random sample of a population is called what?

Back 106

Sampling bias

Front 107

What is the name for the method of sampling in which units are selected by easily employed but basically non-probabilistic methods?

Back 107

Grabbing or "convenience" sampling

Front 108

What is the term for the sampling method whereby all individuals have a known chance of selection?

Back 108

Probability (random) sampling

Front 109

What is the elementary kind of sampling where each person has an equal chance of being selected out of the entire population?

Back 109

Simple random sampling

Front 110

Which type of sampling method involves dividing the population into distinct sub-groups according to some important characteristic, such as age or socioeconomic status, and selecting a random sample out of each sub-group?

Back 110

Stratified random sampling

Front 111

If sampling is done using first letters of last names, which method is used?

Back 111

Systematic sampling

Front 112

What is the term for the method of sampling in which each unit selected is a group of persons (e.g. all persons in a city block, a family) rather than an individual?

Back 112

Cluster sampling

Front 113

Which method of sampling are you using if the total area to be sampled is divided into sub-areas, i.e. by means of a grid that produces squares on a map?

Back 113

Area sampling

Front 114

Which type of statistics is used to summarize the data, either numerically (e.g. mean, standard deviation, median, range) or graphically (e.g. bar chart, histogram), to describe the sample?

Back 114

Descriptive

Front 115

Which type of statistics is used to model patterns in the data, accounting for randomness and drawing inferences about the larger population?

Back 115

Inferential

Front 116

______ is a general term that describes the occurrence of disease or other attribute or event.

Back 116

Frequency

Front 117

______ is the complete summary of the frequencies of values or categories of a measurement made on a group of persons.

Back 117

Distribution

Front 118

The _____ tells either how many or what proportion of the group was found to have each value (or each range of values) out of all of the possible values that the quantitative measure can have.

Back 118

Distribution

Front 119

What is the term for the statistical hypothesis that one variable has no association with another variable or set of variables, or that two or more population distributions do not differ from one another?

Back 119

Null hypothesis

Front 120

What does the null hypothesis state?

Back 120

That the results observed in a study, experiment, or test are no different from what might have occurred as a result of the operation of chance alone

Front 121

The ______ variable is a variable the value of which is dependent on the effect of other _________ variable(s) in the relationship under study

Back 121

Dependent, independent

Front 122

A ____ is a raw estimate of the frequency of disease or the the total number of diseased individuals in a given population at certain point or period of time.

Back 122

Count

Front 123

What are the three types of rates?

Back 123

Crude rate (unadjusted)
Category-specific rate
Characteristic-adjusted rate

Front 124

Incidence proportion is also known as what?

Back 124

Cumulative incidence

Front 125

Which is more important when thinking of societal burden of the disorder including the costs and resources consumed as a result of the disorder, incidence or prevalence?

Back 125

Prevalence

Front 126

Which always requires a duration, incidence or prevalence?

Back 126

Incidence

Front 127

__________ is a set of techniques used to remove as much as possible the effects of differences in age or other confounding variables when comparing two or more populations.

Back 127

Standardization

Front 128

The most common method of standardization is what?

Back 128

Weighted averaging

Front 129

In which type of standardization are specific rates in a population averaged, using as weights the distribution of a specified standard population?

Back 129

Direct

Front 130

Which type of standardization is used to compare study populations for which the specific rates are either statistically unstable or unknown?

Back 130

Indirect

Front 131

T or F One main assumption of epidemiology is that diseases occur at random.

Back 131

False

Front 132

Match:
Concept Example
A. Disease
B. Disability
C. Illness
D. Sickness
E. Handicap

1. Inability to walk
2. Limitations in performing daily tasks
3. Having a stroke
4. Feeling unwell
5. Avoiding contact with others because of influenza infection.

Back 132

A 3
B 1,2
C 4
D 5
E 1,2