Disease Detectives Epidemiology

It’s often useful to classify epidemiology according to several systems:

Classical vs clinical

Classical epidemiology is population oriented and studies the community origins of health problems related to nutrition, environment, and human behavior.

Clinical epidemiology studies patients in health care settings in order to improve diagnosis, treatment, and prognosis.

Infectious Disease Epidemiology - heavily dependent on laboratory support

Chronic Disease Epidemiology - dependent on complex sampling and statistical methods

Descriptive vs analytic

Descriptive epidemiology considers time/place/person data on a disease to determine trends. Answers questions like who/what/where/when.

Analytic epidemiology involves hypothesis testing to determine the cause of disease (causal relations). Answers questions like why/how.