BIO SCI 45 Lecture Notes - Lecture 18: Cohort Study
28 May 2016
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Document Summary
This chapter gives an overview of epidemiology and the role epidemiological studies have played in many different aspects of the aids epidemic. The chapter first focuses on epidemiological principles and methods and then provides current surveillance data (as of: tracking the progress of the aids epidemic in the usa and around the world. In the introductory section, epidemiology is defined as the study of the patterns of disease occurrence in populations and of the factors affecting them. It is pointed out that epidemiological studies give information about populations, not about specific individuals. A comprehensive list of what epidemiology can tell us about diseases, including identifying new diseases, populations at risk, and possible causative agents is provided. Epidemiological studies were also crucial in identifying a pattern of occurrences suggesting that aids was caused by a sexually-transmitted infectious agent and later that aids could be transmitted by contaminated blood.
