Epidemiology in Nursing

Epidemiology is the study of factors that determine health related conditions in a population, including infectious and chronic diseases, accidents and injuries and the effects of occupational and environmental exposures.

As the nurse, you'll use epidemiology to identify factors that affect health related conditions in your community and use that information to reduce disease risk and promote health.

Now, there are some common measures in epidemiology used to describe health related conditions. Morbidity is the occurrence of a condition in a population.

Like the number of individuals who have asthma influenza or have experienced a hip fracture from a fall. You can measure morbidity using incidence rate and prevalence rate.

An incidence rate refers to the occurrence of new cases of a certain condition within a population at risk. During a specific time.

To calculate an incidence rate, you'll set up a ratio with the number of new cases as the numerator and the population at risk as the denominator.

Keep in mind that the population at risk is comprised of individuals who are at risk for the condition. So known cases in individuals who are not susceptible to the condition, like those who are immunized against a certain disease are subtracted from the total population.

As an example, let's say that in a community of 10,000 people, there were 40 existing cases of asthma and 10 new cases were diagnosed during one year to find the incidence rate.

Subtract the 40 known cases from the total population of 10,000 to get the population risk of 9960. Then divide the 10 new cases by 9960 to get an incident rate of 0.001.

You'll then multiply this number by a factor like 1000 to avoid small fractions. This gives you an incidence of asthma cases per 1000 individuals in the community which is one per 1000 during that year.

On the other hand, a prevalence rate which is also called a prevalence proportion is the number of existing cases of a condition within a population at a specific time.

To calculate a prevalence rate, you'll set up a ratio with the number of cases as the numerator and the total population as the denominator prevalence includes all cases in a given time, meaning both existing and new cases.

So in our example, for prevalence, there are a total of 50 cases of asthma composed of 40 existing asthma cases plus the 10 new asthma cases diagnosed over the course of the year to find the prevalence rate of the community divide the 50 asthma cases by the total population of 10,000.

This gives you a prevalence rate of 0.005. You'll then multiply this number by 1000 to get the number of asthma cases per 1000 individuals in the community, which is five per 1000 during that year.

Now, mortality rate refers to the number of deaths in a specific population. To calculate a mortality rate, you'll set up a ratio where the numerator is the number of deaths that occurred within a specific time.

And the denominator is the total population because the population changes during a year, the number used for the total population is an estimate of the population at mid year.

So for example, you can calculate the cost specific mortality rate by dividing the number of deaths from a certain condition like unintentional injuries or lung cancer by the total population and report the result per 100,000.

Another example is an age specific mortality rate, which is the mortality rate of a particular age group like the infant mortality rate.

You'll calculate this by dividing the number of deaths among Children, less than one year of age reported during a year by the number of live births reported in that same year.

As the nurse, you'll use epidemiology to identify factors that affect health related conditions in your community and use that information to reduce disease risk and promote health.

Start by reviewing existing epidemiological data from available databases. You can then use this information to plan how you conduct a community assessment which can help you understand the needs of your community.

For instance, you may note an increase in the agespecific mortality rate among teens due to motor vehicle crashes. You can also perform direct surveillance to identify and monitor patterns across settings such as schools and workplaces.

For example, you may identify an increased incidence of factory workers with similar respiratory signs and symptoms over a specific time.

Using the data you've collected, you'll analyze common factors among those impacted. This will help you identify and understand causes and risk factors and develop a plan to address them.

For instance, you might learn that many teen drivers aren't wearing seatbelts and are distracted by texting while driving.

Or you may find that the factory workers are working in a poorly ventilated area after you've identified problems in your community and some of the factors that impact them.

You'll collaborate with interprofessional teams to develop a plan to address them. For example, you may initiate a safe driving campaign for teen drivers to help prevent deaths due to motor vehicle crashes or you may advocate for improved ventilation at the factory and obtain respirators that can be worn by the workers.

All right. As a quick recap epidemiology is the study of factors that determine health related conditions in a population, including infectious and chronic diseases, accidents and injuries and the effects of occupational and environmental exposures.

As the nurse, you'll use epidemiology to identify factors that affect health related conditions in your community. And use that information to reduce disease risk and promote