What Is Epidemiology?
Epidemiology is a tool, in many ways, to understand the distribution of disease in populations, and the factors that lead to higher or lower rates of disease and ways of effectively preventing disease.
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00:00 Epidemiology is the study of the emergence, distribution, and control of disease, disability,
00:07 and death among groups of people.
00:09 It's a field that combines elements of biology, clinical medicine, sociology, mathematics,
00:15 and ecology to identify and understand health patterns and improve human health across the
00:20 globe.
00:21 Epidemiologists are doctors and scientists who work to understand the source of disease
00:25 and other negative health effects.
00:27 They estimate how many people are exposed and how the disease spreads.
00:33 Epidemiologists are generally associated with infectious diseases and outbreaks, such as
00:36 the COVID-19 pandemic, but they also study non-infectious health problems like the prevalence
00:42 of lung cancer from smoking or communities' increase in homicide rates.
00:47 The epidemiologic triangle is a tool epidemiologists use for explaining the connection between
00:53 the cause of a disease and the conditions that allow it to spread.
00:58 The triangle's three corners represent the who, what, and where of a disease.
01:03 Who is the host or person or people who has the disease?
01:08 What is the agent or cause of the disease?
01:11 And where or in what environment does the disease occur?
01:15 The goal of an epidemiologist is to figure out how to sever at least one link between
01:20 the corners of that triangle.
01:23 Breaking the connection between the host, agent, and environment stops the disease in
01:27 its tracks.
01:29 In early March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologists from Imperial College London
01:35 released a model showing the potential impacts of the disease if certain prevention methods
01:41 were implemented or not.
01:43 The scientists recommended large-scale social distancing to slow the spread of the virus
01:48 and prevent millions of people from dying, thus severing the connection between the where
01:53 and the who.
01:55 The team's recommendations became public policy in many parts of the world and will
01:59 result in fewer cases of the disease than expected had the triangle remained intact.
02:04 [Music]