Incidence and Prevalence Assignment Sample

• Subject Name : Epidemiology

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Module 1:

Discussion Topic 1: Incidence and Prevalence

For the mitigation of childhood obesity, it is required that prevalence of the disease is taken into consideration. Prevalence of a disease or a condition is the measure of the frequency of the same in a given population at a particular time or over a period of time (Fletcher, 2019). This can give estimate of how many children are affected in total and have they increased or decreased compared to previous statistics.
To control the outbreak of Coronavirus, it is required that the number of cases at present is known and that can be known by incidence. Total number of cases at one point of time is called incidence and to slow the spread, information regarding incidence is more important (Fletcher, 2019).

Discussion Topic 2: Measuring Population Risk

Relative risk can be defined as the measure for the causal link or strength of association between the dependent and independent variable (Gogtay&Thatte, 2017). On the contrary, population attributable risk is the extra risk that can be seen when the whole population from which the population has been taken is considered (Jiang et al., 2017). The main factor that needs to be considered when data is collected is that the data should be collected from authentic data banks and when data for specific disease is being collected should be made sure that similar procedure is used for collection of data (Prem et al., 2017).

Module 2:

Discussion Topic 1: Observational Study Design

The best method that can be used as an observational study design is a longitudinal observational study design. In this study design, the study participants who work in such a condition that it is considered as overworking or overload of work can be studied well. As overload of work is subjective in nature so the definition of work overload should be defined by the researcher. The mental health as a self-administered questionnaire can be administered and then as the time progresses, the change in mental health will be observed and evaluated.

Discussion Topic 2: Randomized Controlled Trials

Randomized controlled trials can be used to know the effectiveness of any two interventions to know which intervention is better compared to the each other (Deaton & Cartwright, 2018). If public health context is taken into consideration, an example that can be taken is use of patient education and patient education with lifestyle modification for the reduction in the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. Here two different types of interventions that are mentioned and to know the efficacy of each, a randomized controlled trial is appropriate as it would help to know which intervention would be more effective. This is obtained by the means of comparison between two types of intervention.

Module 3:

Discussion Topic 1: Controlled Trials

A study was conducted to know if provision of treadmill was there while working on computer there will be an increase in physical activity. A randomized controlled trial was formulated where people who were overweight were recruited and random allocation was done to intervention and control group (Bergman et al., 2018). The results reflected that the difference was small but significant. Alternate study design that can be used is to assess is a longitudinal study with intermittent evaluation so that short as well as long-term differences can be seen. Other types of activities that can affect weight are not considered while as a personal opinion the sampling method is the strength of the study.

Discussion Topic 2: Controlled Trials

Randomized controlled trials can be used to know the effectiveness of any two interventions to know which intervention is better compared to the each other (Deaton & Cartwright, 2018). If public health context is taken into consideration, an example that can be taken is use of patient education and patient education along with lifestyle modification for the reduction in the incidence of cardiovascular diseases. Randomized controlled trail would not be appropriate in this context because there are other factors like genetics which can influence cardiovascular diseases.

Module 4:

Discussion Topic 1

An observational study was conducted to know the effect of hydroxycholoquine in Hospitalized Patients with Covid-19 which is considered here (Geleris et al., 2020). Appropriate critical appraisal tool used can be is STROBE guidelines and this is the guideline which can help to understand if the study has been conducted as per the framework for an observational study which is set of 22 questions for knowing if all the things are considered in the same. Hydroxycholroquine was administered to the patients admitted in hospital suffering from Covid-19. The results of the study reflected that hydroxychloroquine neither increased nor decreased the end point of the result (Geleris et al., 2020).

Discussion Topic 2

An experimental study was conducted to know the perceptions among youth adults on the plain packaging and health warning labels for cannabis (Mutti-Packer et al., 2018). Appropriate critical appraisal tool used can be is CASP appraisal tool as it is a set of questions which discusses the study methodology of experimental study design. In the present experimental study design, here the respondents were randomly assigned to four groups depending on packaging. The results of the study reflected that plain packaging and health warning can increase the health related knowledge while reducing the brand appeal (Mutti-Packer et al., 2018).

Module 5:

Discussion Topic 1: Comparing Screening and Surveillance

Apart from prostate cancer, disease that can be screened where benefits can outweigh the risks is breast cancer (Keating & Pace, 2018). From the experience of the screening program, it was seen that there are many women who do not know if the stage of cancer was initial and getting it checked can save the life of the patient.

Discussion Topic 2: Comparing Screening and Surveillance

One of the barriers that can be seen in case of screening is linguistic barrier as sometimes the patient cannot understand what is being told (Galal et al., 2016). Drawing from the personal experience, it was seen that patient literacy is one of the barrier as they do not understand the implication and that is result of less literacy and it is required that is overcome for successful screening. This can encountered if the data is collected by method of purposive or convenience sampling.

Module 6:

Discussion Topic 1: Systematic Review

Systematic review is a process in which the existing literature is evaluated in a systematic manner such that the topic of interest is answered and it is done in case the topic of interest has inconclusive results (Siddaway et al., 2019). On the contrary, critical appraisal is the one in which a particular article is evaluated to know if its methodology is relevant and conducted appropriately. Critical appraisal is a part of systematic review is where the similarity lies.

References

Bergman, F., Wahlström, V., Stomby, A., Otten, J., Lanthén, E., Renklint, R., ...&Öhberg, F. (2018). Treadmill workstations in office workers who are overweight or obese: A randomised controlled trial. The Lancet Public Health, 3(11), e523-e535. HYPERLINK "https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(18)30163-4" https://doi.org/10.1016/S2468-2667(18)30163-4.Deaton, A., & Cartwright, N. (2018). Understanding and misunderstanding randomized controlled trials. Social Science & Medicine, 210, 2-21. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.12.005.
Fletcher, G. S. (2019). Clinical epidemiology: The essentials. Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.Galal, Y. S., Amin, T. T., Alarfaj, A. K., Almulhim, A. A., Aljughaiman, A. A., Almulla, A. K., &Abdelhai, R. A. (2016). Colon cancer among older Saudis: Awareness of risk factors and early signs, and perceived barriers to screening. Asian Pacific Journal of Cancer Prevention, 17(4), 1837-1846.http://journal.waocp.org/article_32319.html.
Geleris, J., Sun, Y., Platt, J., Zucker, J., Baldwin, M., Hripcsak, G., ...&Sobieszczyk, M. E. (2020). Observational study of hydroxychloroquine in hospitalized patients with Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine, 382, 2411-2418. https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2012410.
Gogtay, N. J., &Thatte, U. M. (2017).Principles of correlation analysis. Journal of the Association of Physicians of India, 65(3), 78-81. https://www.kem.edu/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/9-Principles_of_correlation-1.pdf.
Jiang, J., Chen, Y., Shi, J., Song, C., Zhang, J., & Wang, K. (2017).Population attributable burden of Helicobacter pylori-related gastric cancer, coronary heart disease, and ischemic stroke in China. European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious Diseases, 36(2), 199-212. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-016-2810-x.
Keating, N. L., & Pace, L. E. (2018). Breast cancer screening in 2018: Time for shared decision making. Jama, 319(17), 1814-1815. https://doi.org/10.1001/jama.2018.3388.
Mutti-Packer, S., Collyer, B., &Hodgins, D. C. (2018). Perceptions of plain packaging and health warning labels for cannabis among young adults: Findings from an experimental study. BMC public health, 18(1), 1361. HYPERLINK "https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-6247-2" https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-6247-2.
Prem, K., Cook, A. R., &Jit, M. (2017). Projecting social contact matrices in 152 countries using contact surveys and demographic data. PLoS Computational Biology, 13(9), e1005697. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005697.
Siddaway, A. P., Wood, A. M., & Hedges, L. V. (2019). How to do a systematic review: A best practice guide for conducting and reporting narrative reviews, meta-analyses, and meta-syntheses. Annual Review of Psychology, 70, 747-770.https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-psych-010418-102803.

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