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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00:00Epidemiology is the study of the emergence, distribution, and control of disease, disability,
00:07and death among groups of people.
00:09It's a field that combines elements of biology, clinical medicine, sociology, mathematics,
00:15and ecology to identify and understand health patterns and improve human health across the
00:20globe.
00:22Epidemiologists are doctors and scientists who work to understand the source of disease
00:25and other negative health effects.
00:27They estimate how many people are exposed and how the disease spreads.
00:33Epidemiologists are generally associated with infectious diseases and outbreaks, such as
00:36the COVID-19 pandemic, but they also study non-infectious health problems like the prevalence
00:42of lung cancer from smoking or communities' increase in homicide rates.
00:47The epidemiologic triangle is a tool epidemiologists use for explaining the connection between
00:53the cause of a disease and the conditions that allow it to spread.
00:58The triangle's three corners represent the who, what, and where of a disease.
01:03Who is the host or person or people who has the disease?
01:08What is the agent or cause of the disease?
01:11And where or in what environment does the disease occur?
01:15The goal of an epidemiologist is to figure out how to sever at least one link between
01:20the corners of that triangle.
01:23Breaking the connection between host, agent, and environment stops the disease in its tracks.
01:29In early March 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, epidemiologists from Imperial College London
01:35released a model showing the potential impacts of the disease if certain prevention methods
01:41were implemented or not.
01:43The scientists recommended large-scale social distancing to slow the spread of the virus
01:48and prevent millions of people from dying, thus severing the connection between the where
01:53and the who.
01:55The team's recommendations became public policy in many parts of the world and will result
02:00in fewer cases of the disease than expected had the triangle remained intact.