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Behavioral Science

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CHAPTER 26<br />

Epidemiology and<br />

Research Design<br />

EPIDEMIOLOGY<br />

What is prevalence?<br />

What is incidence?<br />

What equation represents<br />

the relationship between<br />

prevalence and incidence?<br />

What happens to the prevalence<br />

of a disease as the duration of it is<br />

lengthened, assuming the incidence<br />

is held constant?<br />

Which is usually greater in chronic<br />

diseases—prevalence or incidence?<br />

Which is more useful for describing<br />

influenza over the course of a year—<br />

incidence or prevalence?<br />

The total number of individuals who<br />

have a disease in a population at a<br />

specific time or period of time, divided<br />

by the total number of people in that<br />

population.<br />

The total number of individuals who<br />

are newly diagnosed with a disease<br />

divided by the number of individuals<br />

who are originally at risk (usually<br />

measured over a time period).<br />

Prevalence = incidence × disease duration<br />

P = I × D<br />

It would increase—use the equation.<br />

Prevalence is usually greater with long<br />

duration diseases, eg, HIV.<br />

Incidence. With acute illnesses, duration<br />

is short and prevalence at any given<br />

time is not of as much value as incidence.<br />

The shorter the illness, the closer<br />

prevalence becomes to being equal<br />

to incidence.<br />

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