What Is Epidemiology?

Live Science

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.

Transcript

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]

Category

Transcript

Recommended