Why is epidemiology such an important discipline for health education?

Answer 1

Epidemiology is considered as basic science of public health. It is study of health related events in population. It takes into account the pattern & rate of risk of disease in the population. So it is fundamental to the practice of public health.

Answer 2

It is essential to identify outbreaks of disease in an area or in workers in specific industries or other groups that have diseases in common. This is to identify patients, find out who else might be at risk and take measures to test them and treat them and contain the outbreak of disease.

Epidemiological statistics are vitally important in preventing future outbreaks of disease in the group most at risk.

An outbreak of Cholera? Knowing where the patients live will help in finding out the source, such as a contaminated well. Typhoid in a closed community such as an army base? Start looking for a kitchen worker who is a carrier. AIDS first attracted attention because doctors were seeing a very rare type of pneumonia. When too much of a rare event happens in a community, there will invariably be a connection. In the USA, when rare pneumonias became commonplace, a cause was looked for and a new disease affecting the gay community was investigated and AIDS was discovered.

If tuberculosis is endemic in an area, keeping accurate records will be a useful measuring tool to see if the vaccination program is effective.

Epidemiology has at its heart the will to:-

1. identify a problem affecting a group, and to
2. take steps to limit or abolish the cause,
3. treat the afflicted and
4. prevent more people being hit with the same problem, and as
5. statistical evidence needed when applying for more government funding.