What is epidemiology and disease control?
What is epidemiology and disease control?
Epidemiology is the foundation of public health and is defined as the study of the “distribution and determinants” of diseases or disorders within groups of people, and the development of knowledge on how to prevent and control them.
What is host and agent?
The agent infects the host, which is the organism that carries the disease. A host doesn’t necessarily get sick; hosts can act as carriers for an agent without displaying any outward symptoms of the disease. Hosts get sick or carry an agent because some part of their physiology is hospitable or attractive to the agent.
What factors should be considered in measuring long term changes in disease frequency?
Epidemiologists must always consider three factors when they measure how commonly a disease occurs in a group of people: (1) the number of people that are affected by the disease, (2) the size of the population from which the cases of disease arise, and (3) the length of time that the popula- tion is followed.
What is meant by control of disease?
Control of disease. Prevention. Most diseases are preventable to a greater or lesser degree, the chief exceptions being the idiopathic diseases, such as the inherited metabolic defects.
What are the principles of disease elimination and eradication?
The Principles of Disease Elimination and Eradication. Example: diarrhoeal diseases. Elimination of disease: Reduction to zero of the incidence of a specified disease in a defined geographical area as a result of deliberate efforts; continued intervention measures are required. Example: neonatal tetanus.
Is disease ordinarily controllable by elimination of reservoirs of infection?
Nor is disease ordinarily controllable by elimination of reservoirs of infection, such as those that occur in wild animals. There are, however, certain exceptions in which the reservoir of infection can be greatly reduced. For example, chemotherapy of human tuberculosis may render individual cases noninfectious.
Why is the control of communicable disease important?
The control of communicable disease has been the major advance of the 20th century in scientific medicine. It reflects the combination of improved environmental conditions and public health together with the development of immunization, antimicrobial chemotherapy, and the increasing ability to identify new pathogenic organisms.
