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What are the benefits of using epidemiological analyses?
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Posted By Stevie C
Hi all, I was asked this question today and I haven't had much experience with epidemiological analyses. If any one good give me some sound advice i would really appreciate it. Thanks in advance.
Stevie
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Posted By David Bannister
They keep epidemiologists in work!
Furthermore, they are a structured way of looking at large data sets to determine patterns, particularly applicable to long term health issues such as exposure to a particular substance by many people over a long period of time. The studies can sometimes give reliable indicators of the level of risk from a specific exposure. Equally they can be used to indicate low or approaching zero risk.
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Posted By CFT
Stevie
To save me the job of duplicating one of my favourite explanations, see the link here;
http://www.fao.org/Waird...ILRI/x5436E/x5436e04.htm
If one assumes that ES is restricted to disease, we have our share of studies such as Asthma, Asbestos related, skin, and so on; we use the methodology ourselves from time to time but probably to be fair do not refer to it specifically as an epidemiological study although if the cap fits and everyone understands the terminology why not?
A.N. Other organisation UK wide producing (whatever) which despite health surveillance and everything else ticked may have a substantial level of absenteeism to sickness/repetitive ill-health, what trend is there, what is the cause, are there repeats and similarities? What a surprise to find that perhaps 85% of the work force are all suffering the same problem/disease caused by whatever the study has revealed; it easily allows the investigator to address the root cause of the problem rather than permitting a degree of guess-work and time consuming trial and error which ultimately helps no-one. It can be addressed quickly on a grander sale which is relative to the problem.
It can also be used in advance of any ‘likely’ occurrence/outbreak to examine possible consequence; this is extremely useful to Governmental related control measures for outbreaks. be one step ahead (proactive) v (reactive).
Hope this helps some.
CFT
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Posted By Tabs
Some good guidance, but remember that it is a branch of statistics in reality, and the golden rule of all statistics is to get a meaningful set of data... Your confidence in the results must be based on the sample size v population size, but all of this is explained in any good publication.
You also need to look at all influences and relate causation to the correct influence (lung cancer showed a good correlation to car ownership as well as smoking tobacco)
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Posted By Stevie C
Thanks for all your help....very useful.
Stevie
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What are the benefits of using epidemiological analyses?
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