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The Plague of Athens (c. 1652 –1654) by Michiel Sweerts, illustrating the devastating epidemic that struck Athens in 430 BC, as described by the historian Thucydides. The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention defines epidemic broadly: "Epidemic refers to an increase, often sudden, in the number of cases of a disease above what is normally expected in that population in ...
Epidemiology has its limits at the point where an inference is made that the relationship between an agent and a disease is causal (general causation) and where the magnitude of excess risk attributed to the agent has been determined; that is, epidemiology addresses whether an agent can cause disease, not whether an agent did cause a specific ...
In epidemiology, a risk factor or determinant is a variable associated with an increased risk of disease or infection. [ 1 ] : 38 Due to a lack of harmonization across disciplines, determinant , in its more widely accepted scientific meaning , is often used as a synonym.
An infectious disease, also known as a transmissible disease or communicable disease, is an illness resulting from an infection. Infections can be caused by a wide range of pathogens , most prominently bacteria and viruses . [ 2 ]
The increased risk is believed to be due to the random chance of developing any cancer, the likelihood of surviving the first cancer, the same risk factors that produced the first cancer, unwanted side effects of treating the first cancer (particularly radiation therapy), and better compliance with screening.
By convention, a communicable disease outbreak is declared over when a period of twice the incubation period of the infectious disease has elapsed without identification of any new case, however, for organisms with a short incubation period (e.g. fewer than ten days), a period of three times the incubation period is preferred. [11]
An emerging infectious disease (EID) is an infectious disease whose incidence has increased recently (in the past 20 years), and could increase in the near future. [2] [3] The minority that are capable of developing efficient transmission between humans can become major public and global concerns as potential causes of epidemics or pandemics. [4]
Being female is the single greatest risk factor for developing autoimmune disease than any other genetic or environmental risk factor yet discovered. [ 23 ] [ 24 ] Autoimmune conditions overrepresented in women include: lupus , primary biliary cholangitis , Graves' disease , Hashimoto's thyroiditis , and multiple sclerosis , among many others.