Epidemiology studies disease in populations and employs various scientific tools to understand the spread and cause of diseases. It is crucial in controlling infectious disease outbreaks and solving health problems caused by environmental factors.
Epidemiology is the study of human health in populations, rather than individuals. Study the causes of disease, how a particular disease spreads, and disease control. Epidemiology is, literally, the study of epidemics.
Epidemiology first became an issue when human populations began congregating in towns and cities. Without some form of rudimentary epidemiology, it would have been impossible to control infectious disease outbreaks. Simple quarantine can contain some diseases that are passed from person to person, but more sophistication is required to stop the spread of diseases whose cause is not so obvious, such as cholera.
Epidemiology employs a wide range of scientific tools, from medicine and statistics to sociology and anthropology. Many diseases follow the flow of population migrations, so understanding how a migrant population moves with the seasons is critical to understanding the spread of a particular disease in that population. Epidemiology is concerned not only with the spread of diseases, but also with their cause: if an outbreak of cholera can be traced back to a particular source of contaminated water, for example, the disease can be effectively halted by closing access to that water source.
Sometimes the cause of a particular health problem can only be shown statistically – here epidemiology has its hardest case to make. That smoking is a factor in a number of health problems has so far only been proven statistically in large population studies. No single case of lung cancer can be proven to have been caused by smoking, which sadly leaves some intellectual leeway for those who choose not to believe that smoking is unhealthy.
Many health problems caused by environmental factors can only be solved through epidemiology. A spike in cancer incidence near a pollution source, for example, may not be seen when looking at individual cases, only when looking at the statistics for the whole area. Epidemiology is the primary weapon in public health, and epidemiologists are often our first and last defence.
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