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18 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Briefly describe the disease reporting process.
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Physicians and other health care workers report cases of a reportable condition to a local health authority. The local authority forwards it to the state, who may send it on the CDC. The CDC can only investigate conditions in federal facilities like VA hospitals, reservations, military bases, etc. unless a state requests assistance.
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What are the ten steps involved in investigating the outbreak of an acute disease?
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1. Confirm outbreak (unexpectedly high disease numbers)
2. Describe and diagnose disease, if possible. 3. Identify population at risk and best working diagnostic criteria. 4. Survey cases by demographic data. 5. Characterize pattern of occurence and attach rates. 6. Develop a testable hypothesis with respect to cause and exposure. 7. Test hypothesis. 8. Determine the most likely explanation for the excess cases based on observations. 9. Introduce control measures. 10. Evaluate effectiveness of control measures and possibly introduce additional measures. |
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Differentiate between acute and chronic disease as it relates to epidemiology.
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Acute disease is disease that has a relatively short incubation period, while chronic disease might have a longer incubation period. The short incubation period of acute disease allows physicians to determine who else may have been exposed and take appropriate measures.
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What is the difference between induction period and incubation period?
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Incubation period is the time between internalization of disease-causing agent and onset of symptoms for an infectious disease, while induction period describes the same time period for a non-infectious disease.
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Define cluster.
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A cluster is a set of cases that appear to have been diagnosed unusually close to each other in space and time. It may represent coincidence or outbreak.
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Define and differentiate between outbreak and epidemic.
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Both terms describe an abnormally high number of cases of a disease in a certain location, time, and population. It usually indicates a change in exposure. Outbreak is usually dealing with a shorter time span, while an epidemic may occur to a long-term trend in occurrence.
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Differentiate between the terms endemic, hyperendemic, and holoendemic.
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Endemic disease levels are the levels of a disease that are normal for a certain location or population.
Hyperendemic refers to endemic levels of a disease being higher in certain circumstances. Holendemic refers to circumstances in which a disease is universally present. |
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What is a pandemic?
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A pandemic is a widely distributed (usually international) epidemic, and may be considered endemic in some cases.
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Differentiate between degree of infectiousness, pathogenicity, and virulence.
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Degree of infectiousness is a descriptor solely of the transmitter of the disease, and not the recipient. It is based on the anatomic site from which transmission occurs, viability of agent between hosts, number of viable organisms transmitted, and duration of transmission.
Pathogenicity is a combination of the characteristics of the infectious agent and the host. It can be influenced by factors like transmitted dose, host defense status, and species of host. Virulence is related to pathogenicity, but is usually used to compare strains of the same agent. |
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What is the infectious dose?
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The infectious dose is the number of organisms required to produce a lasting infection. Measured similarly to LD50.
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What does susceptibility to infection describe?
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Susceptibility to infection describes only the host immune status at the time of infection. Host factors that have bearing on how the infection progresses but not whether infection is established are not included in this concept.
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Define pathogenesis.
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Pathogenesis is the mechanism by which an infectious agent causes disease. ie: toxin production, tissue destruction, inactivation of host defenses, nutrient competition, organ obstruction, pathological immune response
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Distinguish between iatrogenic and nosocomial infections.
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Iatrogenic infections are caused by health care provider action, while nosocomial infections are due to general exposure in the hospital.
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Who determines what disease are reportable and administers information collection?
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State legislatures determine which diseases are reportable. The responsibility of data collection falls onto local governments. Information passed on to the CDC is compiled and passed back to the states.
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What is the case-fatality ratio?
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The case-fatality ratio is the proportion of affected individuals who do not survive.
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Define autochthonous.
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Autochthonous means locally generated.
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What is the secondary attack rate?
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The secondary attack rate is the cumulative incidence rate among those exposed to infected people in the case of person to person disease spread.
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How is vaccine efficacy calculated?
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Vaccine efficacy is the difference in attack rate between vaccinated and unvaccinated, divided by the attack rate in the unvaccinated.
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