Analyzing Disease Patterns

In our last unit with the Thompson family, we tackled the fundamentals of infectious disease epidemiology, exploring everything from pathogens and their diseases to how they spread through communities. We learned about the body’s defenses, discussed antibiotic resistance, determined what pathogen was infecting the Thompsons, and unraveled the intricacies of the epidemiology triangle.

Imagine it as a ball of yarn that’s been carefully unraveled. All the information was a bit tangled before, but now we’ve gently sorted it out, and everything is coming together nicely.

In this module you get to meet another member of the Thompson Family.

Aunt Betty!

Do you know what Aunt Betty likes to do with a ball of yarn?

She likes to knit sweaters for the Thompson kids... and she LOVES to make patterns.

This is perfect because now, we’re focusing on an important skill in epidemiology: ANALYZING DISEASE PATTERNS!

In this module, we’ll learn how to map disease spread, spot trends, and even predict future outbreaks. This knowledge is super important—it helps us understand previous outbreaks and how to prevent them in the future!

Imagine the Thompson family watching a pattern emerge in their community's health data. By applying the tools and techniques we'll cover in this module, they—and you—will learn to interpret these patterns, gaining insights that could be key to safeguarding public health.

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- How do we keep track of disease occurrence and monitor the emergence of new diseases?
- What are the key sources of disease surveillance data?
- How can analyzing patterns of illness help scientists?
- How do we use epidemiological data to study disease?
- How does public health surveillance data benefit society?

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1. Mortality rate - the ratio of the total number of deaths to the total population.
2. Morbidity rate - The sickness rate, the number of people who are sick or have a disease compared with the number who are well.
3. Disease frequency - the number of cases that occur over a given time period.
4. Incidence cases - new cases during a given time period.
5. Prevalence cases - all cases during a given time period.
6. Case fatality rate - proportion of people with a disease who die from it.
7. Birth rate - calculated by dividing the number of live births during a specified time period by the population from which the births occurred typically expressed as the number of live births per 1,000 people.
8. Attack rate - proportion of population that develops illness.
9. Infant mortality rate - number of deaths among infants ages 0-1 year during a specified time period divided by the number of live births in the same time period.
10. Case - a person in a population with a particular disease, disorder or condition that is being investigated.
11. Ratio - common descriptive measure, used as both descriptive measures and as analytic tools in epidemiology.
12. Proportion - the comparison of a part to the whole.
13. Rate - a measure of the frequency with which an event occurs in a defined population over a specified period of time.
14. Cause-specific death rate - the mortality rate from a specified cause for a population.
15. Incidence - the number of new cases of a disease that develop in a population within a specific time period.
16. Prevalence - the proportion of persons in a population who have a particular disease or attribute at a specified point in time or over a specified period of time, regardless of when they first developed it.

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Lesson 1: Disease Distribution
Lesson 2: Measuring Disease Occurrence
Lesson 3: Public Health Surveillance

Get ready to become disease detectives, where each piece of data helps unravel a community's larger story of health and disease. This module will help equip us with the analytical skills necessary to impact the world of public health profoundly.

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