Measures of Disease Frequency Essay

According to Aschengrau and Seage (2008), measures of disease frequency are the “building blocks” employed by epidemiologists to evaluate effects of a disease on humans (2008, p.59).

When measures of disease frequency are compared, they consolidate building blocks in a constructive manner and permits one to define the correlation between characteristics and a disorder. It is possible to compare disease frequencies between diverse populations.Measures of Disease Frequency Essay

For instance, an epidemiologist may aspire to compare disease frequencies between inhabitants of the United States and Haiti in terms of demographic attributes such as gender, age, race and socio-economic aspects.

Other demographic attributes that can be compared are personal habits (i.e. cigarette smoking or alcohol consumption) and environmental aspects (i.e. water and air pollution).

What’s more, an epidemiologist may opt to compare prevalence rates of coronary heart ailment between inhabitants of the US and Haiti or amongst smokers and nonsmokers, whites and blacks, men and women, and in areas prevalent with low and high pollution levels (Aschengrau & Seage, 2008, p.60).

There are several reasons to explain why the crude birth rate in Haiti is lower than in the United States.