epidemiology

(noun)

The branch of a science dealing with the spread and control of diseases, computer viruses, concepts, etc. throughout populations or systems.

Related Terms

  • scientific medicine
  • behavioral medicine

Examples of epidemiology in the following topics:

  • Social Epidemiology and Health

    • Social epidemiology studies the social distribution and social determinants of health.
    • A social epidemiological study can be conducted when a sociologist in the field identifies a cancer cluster around a particular area.
    • In this way, the epidemiological study can help point out the health hazard variables that are affecting the cancer cluster.
    • Social epidemiology is defined as "the branch of epidemiology that studies the social distribution and social determinants of health"; or in other words, "both specific features of, and pathways by which, societal conditions affect health" (Krieger, 2001).
    • The roots of social epidemiology go back Emile Durkheim's work on suicide .
  • The Experience of Illness

    • Epidemiology is the scientific study of factors affecting the health and illness of individuals and populations; it serves as the foundation and logic for interventions made in the interest of public health and preventive medicine.
  • Gender

  • Social Class

  • Age

  • World Health Trends

    • World (or global) health as a research field emerged out of this necessity and lies at the intersection of the medical and social science disciplines, including the fields of demography (the study of population trends), economics, epidemiology (the study of the distribution of health events in a population), political economy, and sociology.
  • Health Disparities

    • Building on these insights, sociologists and public health researchers have documented a wide variety of racial and economic health disparities tied to neighborhood and environmental contexts, and have even begun requiring graduate courses and training workshops on neighborhood contexts for public health, epidemiological, and medical sociology researchers.
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