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Define Epidemiology

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In order to determine the importance of Epidemiology in the field of Public Health, you must establish a working definition for Epidemiology. According to the Dictionary of Epidemiology, Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to the control of health problems. Additionally, Wikipedia states that Epidemiology is the study and analysis of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations. It is the cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive healthcare. There are many definitions of epidemiology, but every epidemiologist will know exactly what it is that he or she does. Defining epidemiology is difficult primarily …show more content…

These steps include conducting a needs assessment, setting priorities, formulating objectives, constructing a logic model, developing an evaluation plan, performing quality control, and analyzing processes and outcomes. The heart of the book is the chapter-by-chapter description of each of these steps. Many of these approaches are parallel to frameworks for evidence-based medicine (Sackett, 1995) and evidence-based public health practices (Brownson, 2009). One could argue that much of what is contained in the 7 core chapters is quite different from the standard literature on epidemiology; yet, in most places, the authors do a nice job of linking epidemiologic contributions to these important public health functions. There are two areas in which the researcher has valued more detail: 1) the important contributions and approaches from economic evaluation and 2) searching the scientific literature when a systematic review is not available (Garrard,

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