Measures of Public Health Impact

This set of flashcards covers key concepts and definitions related to public health measures, epidemiology, and risk assessment.

Epidemiology

The study of how diseases affect the health and illness of populations.

Measures of Disease Frequency

Quantitative assessments used to quantify the occurrence of diseases within a population.

Relative Risk (RR)

A measure of the strength of association between an exposure and an outcome, comparing the risk of the outcome in the exposed group to the risk in the unexposed group.

Attributable Risk (AR)

The amount of disease in an exposed group that can be linked to a specific exposure, indicating how much risk could be prevented if the exposure were eliminated.

Population Attributable Risk (PAR)

Estimates the proportion of disease in the entire population that can be attributed to a specific exposure, accounting for the prevalence of the exposure.

Odds Ratio (OR)

A measure used to determine the odds of an outcome occurring in an exposed group compared to an unexposed group.

Cumulative Incidence

The proportion of a population that acquires a disease over a specified period of time.

Incidence Density

The rate at which new cases of a disease occur in a population over time, often expressed per person-time units.

Prevalence

The total number of existing cases of a disease in a population at a given time.

Risk

The probability of an event occurring in a group, calculated as the number of events divided by the total number of at-risk individuals.