Epidemiology In Public Health

The Role of Epidemiology in Public Health

Why John Snow is considered as the ‘father of the field of epidemiology’.

John Snow is widely considered to be the father of epidemiology because of his persistent efforts to determine how cholera was spread and for initiating methods of statistical mapping. (Ph.ucla.edu, 2016) He discovered that cholera was water borne. He dispelled the commonly held theory that cholera was caused by “bad air” His discovery of the cause, mode of transmission led to adoption of appropriate interventions to reduce spread of the disease. The methods he used in the description of events of cholera formed the basis for public health surveillance systems. (Public Health, 2015)

What is epidemiology?

“Epidemiology is the

It focuses on the number of people exposed, and the potential for spread within the community to enable implementation of appropriate actions to prevent additional cases or recurrences of the disease. (Brownson, 2011)

Application - Epidemiology provides useful scientific basis for prevention of diseases and injury and the promotion of health. (Soph.uab.edu, 2016)

Roles of epidemiology

Epidemiology is considered a tool for collecting data that enable public health surveillance, disease investigation, analytic studies and program evaluation.

Public Health Surveillance

Public health surveillance is essential for rapid detection investigation and identification of disease outbreaks. The common source of surveillance data is reports of disease cases received from health-care providers and from communities. Health facility monitor notifiable diseases occurrence on a routine basis. Notifiable diseases routinely monitored include malaria, cholera, rabies, tuberculosis. (Dicker, 1992) Notifiable disease surveillance is done in most health facilities as a way of tracking the occurrence of

In addition information generated by epidemiologic methods is used to assess community’s health status. For most policy makers the community health assessment is important to determine whether health services are available, accessible. It’s also useful for projection of public health resource needs. (Soph.uab.edu, 2016) (Dicker, 1992)

Natural history of Malaria

The natural ecology of malaria involves malaria parasites infecting in succession two types of hosts: humans and female Anopheles mosquitoes. (Cdc.gov, 2016)

Humans are the only important reservoir that transmit human malaria. In humans, firstly the parasites will grow and multiply in the liver cells and then in the red cells of the blood. In the blood stream, the parasites grow inside the red cells and destroys them, releasing merozoites that continue the cycle by invading other red blood cells. (Niaid.nih.gov, 2016)

The blood stage parasites are those that cause the symptoms of malaria. When blood stage gametocytes are ingested by a female Anopheles mosquito during a blood meal, they initiate another cycle of replication within the mosquito. The life cycle of the parasite within the mosquito is approximately 8- 35 days, after which the parasite is infective when injected into another