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Specific to public health policy, a determinant is a health risk that is general, abstract, related to inequalities, and difficult for an individual to control. [2] [3] [4] For example, poverty is known to be a determinant of an individual's standard of health. Risk factors may be used to identify high-risk people.
A retrospective study, on the other hand, looks backwards and examines exposures to suspected risk or protection factors in relation to an outcome that is established at the start of the study. Many valuable case–control studies, such as Lane and Claypon's 1926 investigation of risk factors for breast cancer, were retrospective investigations.
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 ...
Epidemiological (and other observational) studies typically highlight associations between exposures and outcomes, rather than causation. While some consider this a limitation of observational research, epidemiological models of causation (e.g. Bradford Hill criteria) [7] contend that an entire body of evidence is needed before determining if an association is truly causal. [8]
The components for the calculations are as follows: population denominator (size of the population); proportion of the population with the disease; proportion of the population exposed to the risk factor or the incremental proportion of the diseased population eligible for the proposed intervention (the latter requires the actual or estimated ...
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 ...
"OR" stands for "odds ratio" and "RR" stands for "relative risk". A prospective cohort study is a longitudinal cohort study that follows over time a group of similar individuals ( cohorts ) who differ with respect to certain factors under study to determine how these factors affect rates of a certain outcome . [ 1 ]
Infection control addresses factors related to the spread of infections within the healthcare setting, whether among patients, from patients to staff, from staff to patients, or among staff. This includes preventive measures such as hand washing , cleaning, disinfecting, sterilizing , and vaccinating .