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In science, prevalence describes a proportion (typically expressed as a percentage). For example, the prevalence of obesity among American adults in 2001 was estimated by the U. S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) at approximately 20.9%. [5] Prevalence is a term that means being widespread and it is distinct from incidence.
Prevalence can also be measured with respect to a specific subgroup of a population. Incidence is usually more useful than prevalence in understanding the disease etiology: for example, if the incidence rate of a disease in a population increases, then there is a risk factor that promotes the incidence.
In epidemiology, a rate ratio, sometimes called an incidence density ratio or incidence rate ratio, is a relative difference measure used to compare the incidence rates of events occurring at any given point in time. It is defined as:
In medical research, epidemiology, social science, and biology, a cross-sectional study (also known as a cross-sectional analysis, transverse study, prevalence study) is a type of observational study that analyzes data from a population, or a representative subset, at a specific point in time—that is, cross-sectional data. [definition needed]
To overcome this problem, NPV and PPV should only be used if the ratio of the number of patients in the disease group and the number of patients in the healthy control group used to establish the NPV and PPV is equivalent to the prevalence of the diseases in the studied population, or, in case two disease groups are compared, if the ratio of ...
Attributable fraction for the population combines both the relative risk of an incident with respect to the factor, as well as the prevalence of the factor in the population. Values of AF p close to 1 indicate that both the relative risk is high, and that the risk factor is prevalent. In such case, removal of the risk factor will greatly reduce ...
In practice the odds ratio is commonly used for case-control studies, as the relative risk cannot be estimated. [1] In fact, the odds ratio has much more common use in statistics, since logistic regression, often associated with clinical trials, works with the log of the odds ratio, not relative risk. Because the (natural log of the) odds of a ...
An infection rate or incident rate is the probability or risk of an infection in a population.It is used to measure the frequency of occurrence of new instances of infection within a population during a specific time period.