HRS 1017 Lecture Notes - Lecture 8: Disease Surveillance, Pap Test, Mammography
24 Jan 2020
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Document Summary
Understanding the burden of disease in the community. Screening may work really well in some populations, but not at all in others. Epidemiologists work to promote health and prevent disease. Evaluate burden of disease within a community. Goal: use a simple test that is safe and inexpensive to reduce morbidity and mortality from disease among persons being screened. Purpose: detect disease or body dysfunction before an individual would normally seek care. Identify people who probably have the disease and exclude those who probably do not have the disease. Early treatment must be of some value. The prevalence of the disease is high. Positive tests are more likely to mean people are sick when used on actual sick people. Screening test should be relatively sensitive and specific (it should be valid and reliable) should be simple and inexpensive should be very safe. Must be acceptable to subjects and providers.
