Basic Epidemiology Terms
This is defined as the number of new cases of a disease in a specified population during a certain time period.
What is incidence?
This study design follows a group of people over time measure the development of disease.
What is a cohort study?
This ethical principle involves doing no harm to participants during the research process
What is non-maleficence?
This bias occurs when individuals with a specific disease or outcome are more likely to be included in a study, leading to an overestimation of the association between exposure and outcome.
What is selection bias?
This criterion suggests that a cause must precede the effect in time, meaning the exposure must occur before the outcome in a causal relationship.
What is temporality?
The proportion of people in a population who have a particular disease at a given point in time.
What is prevalence?
In this study design, participants are selected based on their disease status (diseased vs. non-diseased)
What is a case-control study?
Researchers must ensure that the benefits of a study outweigh it’s risk. What ethical principle does this represent?
What is beneficence?
In this type of bias, the measurement of the exposure or outcome is inaccurate, often because of systematic errors in data collection or reporting.
What is information bias?
This criterion examines whether an association is consistently observed across different studies, populations, and settings, strengthening the argument for causality.
What is consistency?
This terms refers to a factor that increases the likelihood of developing a disease or health problem.
What is risk factor?
This is a type of randomized trial that tests the effectiveness of a new drug or intervention.
What is a randomized controlled trial?
This ethical principle ensures that the burdens and benefits of research are fairly distributed.
What is justice?
This is one way to control for a confounder in the DESIGN stage?
What is Randomization, restriction, or matching
In a cohort study, researchers find that individuals who are exposed to high levels of air pollution tend to develop respiratory diseases years later. The researchers also observe that this association is stronger when controlling for other factors, such as age and occupational exposure. What criterion does this demonstrate?
What is temporality?
The study of the distribution and determinants of health related events in a population.
What is epidemiology?
A study design that observes a population at a single point in time to assess disease prevalence.
What is a cross sectional study?
This committee ensures the ethical conduct of research by reviewing study protocols to ensure the protection of human participants.
What is an Institutional Review Board?
This term refers to the degree to which the results of a study can be generalized to populations beyond the specific study sample.
What is external validity?
In a study of alcohol consumption and liver disease, researchers find that increasing alcohol intake is associated with a higher risk of developing cirrhosis. Additionally, laboratory experiments show that alcohol directly damages liver cells. What aspect of causality is supported by these findings?
What is biological plausibility?
This statistic is used to measure the strength of the association between an exposure and an outcome, specifically the ratio of the odds of the outcome occurring in the exposed group compared to the unexposed group.
What is odds ratio?
A study design in which participants are not randomly assigned to groups and instead are observed based on their exposure status.
What is an observational study?
This infamous study, conducted by the US Public Health Service from 1932 to 1972, involved withholding treatment from African American men with syphilis, even after penicillin became the standard treatment, violating principles of informed consent and causing unnecessary harm.
What is the Tuskegee Syphilis Study?
A study found that people who drink coffee tend to have higher rates of lung cancer, when smoking is controlled for, the association disappears. What is the confounder in this example?
What is smoking?
In a study of air pollution and asthma, researchers find that exposure to high level of pollutants is associated with higher risk of developing asthma. When they conduct an experimental study to reduce pollution in a specific area, they observe a subsequent reduction in asthma incidence. What causal principle does this example demonstrate?
What is experiment?