ANTC68H3 Lecture : Lecture 2
Document Summary
Epidemiology: the study of (human) disease, illness, and injury, causes, manifestations, distribution and consequences and the application of this study to the control of health problems (public health) Importance of studying prevalence over incidence: sources of evidence: human hard/soft tissues, archaeological evidence (demography), cemetery and (ethno) historical records, even ethnographic analogy. Miasma and cholera: london, england, 4 major cholera outbreaks in mid-19th c, cholera: acute intestinal infection caused by bacterium vibrio cholera, 600 + deaths in 1854. Medical ecology www. notesolution. com emphasizes the study of health and diseases in environmental context. Modes of i nfectious disease t ransmission: respiratory (importance of population size, proximity, fecal-oral (gastrointestinal, parasites, sexual contact, vertical/congenital(through mum, in utero, at birth, direct physical contact (yaws, pinta, endemic syphilis) Indirect (inanimate objects [needles], water, soil, food; or via living vectors[snails, mosquitoes, ticks, fleas, lice]) www. notesolution. com. Under/overnutrition: vitamin c deficiency: scurvy, vitamin d deficiency:rickets, excess alcohol: liver cirrhosis, general overnutrition: obesity.