Chapter 3

What is the difference between crude and adjusted rates?

Crude rate describes and depicts the number of people in the total population. While specific rate depicts and describes the number of people who are sick or the number of people who have died in the total population. Crude rate shows the total population while specific rate shows the number of diseased or sick people in that total population

Why are epidemiologists sometimes interested in epizootics?

Epidemic of a particular disease starts from the animal and then spreads to the human population, it comes under epizootics. the epidemiologist are interested in this field of Investigation because when doing so they have to undergo a research to find out the cause of disease in the animals and then have to prevent its spread to human beings.

What is an epidemic? a pandemic? Name some diseases that cause epidemics in the past. Name some diseases that are epidemic today.

Epidemic stands for an unexpected large number of Particular populations getting ill and showing symptoms of specific related Behavior at a particular time and at a particular place. Pandemic stands for a wide outbreak of a disease over a wide geographical area such as a continent

What is an infant mortality rate? Why is it such an important rate in community health?

Infant mortality rate stands for the number of deaths of new born in the total population of new born at a particular time. This rate provides an exact number of deaths of infants in the total population. Infant mortality rate is such an important rate in community health because it is of significance to know about the number of deaths of new born babies in a particular period of time. This rate shows the occurrence of any particular disease or diseases that causes infant mortality. To prevent infant mortality, community and its people tries to take appropriate steps and precautions so that new born babies could be saved from such diseases that affect them and the rate of mortality of newborn increases.

Why are rates important in community health?

It is extremely important to notify the number of births that has been added in the community, the number of deaths that has decreased the number of people, the attack rate describes the outbreak of any disease affecting the total population etc. These birth rates, death rates, incidence rates, attack rates etc makes a community aware about the health related issues of its population. By getting aware about rates, a community is in a condition to prepare for any such disease or health related issues that might take a broader form in the future. And thus these rates are so important for the community health

What does the term endemic disease mean? Give examples of such diseases.

Make disease stands for the disease that occurs repeatedly in a population as a matter of course. A disease is an epidemic or endemic, it completely depends upon the disease and the population. Ex: Malaria is an endemic disease. These diseases occur very frequently and there is no proper finish or a stop to these endemic diseases.

What is the difference between natality, morbidity, and mortality?

Natality stands for the number of births, morbidity stands for the number of sick people and mortality represents the number of deaths in the total population. Thus to conclude it could be said that natality shows addition in the population, morbidity shows risks of sickness among people and mortality shows decrease in the number of people in a total population.

What are notifiable diseases? Give some examples.

Notifiable diseases are infectious diseases that can take a form of an epidemic and for which health officials are required to maintain weekly records. The examples are malaria, plague, silicosis, small pox, cancer, HIV

Why are prevalence rates more useful than incidence rates for measuring chronic diseases?

Prevalence rates provide information about the old and new both types of occurrences of diseases in a particular period of time and incidence rates just provide information over the new cases of diseases in the total population. Thus to track any of the chronic diseases, the data provided by prevalence rate is always better than the data provided by the incidence rate because data of prevalence rate gives both old and new cases of disease occurrence while incidence rate just provides new disease cases and events in the total population.

What kinds of data would you expect to find in the Centers for Disease Control and prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report?

The kind of data could be major life events like births, death, marriages, divorces, etc. It includes information regarding maternal and infant health issues, details about personal care and delivery. Details about life expectancy, causes of deaths etc. could also be found in this data. The kind of data that could be expected to find in Prevention's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report could be outbreaks of diseases, environmental hazards, unusual cases, or other public health problems.

What is the U.S. Census? How often is it conducted? What type of data does it gather?

U.S. Consus is conducted every 10 years. The type of data that census gathers is about income, employment, family size, education, dwelling type, and many other social indicators.