Epidemiology Basics Quiz

Multiple Choice Questions

• Incidence rate: Measures the rate of disease spread in a population at risk, expressed as the rate of disease spread in a population at risk.
• Prevalence: Proportion of people affected by a disease in a population at a specific time.
• Cohort studies: Primarily focus on studying multiple diseases or exposures, not just one condition.
• Descriptive studies: are not suitable for investigating risk factors associated with heart attacks.
• Case-control studies: are suitable for investigating risk factors associated with heart attacks.
• Randomized clinical trials: Study design for investigating risk factors associated with heart attacks.
• Descriptive studies weakness: Do not explain phenomenon.

Harder Multiple Choice

• Cohort studies in epidemiology focus: Applying the study to rare diseases, studying multiple diseases simultaneously, or having a high level of evidence; or all choices.
• Case-control studies characteristic: Greater risk of bias in recalling exposures is a characteristic.
• Proportion in epidemiology context: Cumulative incidence represents the proportion.
• Cohort studies limitation: Cohort studies are usually a long study that can be impacted my risk of exposure information bias.
• Cross-sectional study purpose: A cross-sectional study describes the frequency of a phenomenon at a specific moment in time.

Open-Ended Questions

• Incidence rate definition and expression: The rate of disease spread in a population at risk, expressed as the number of individuals who developed the disease divided by the total observed person-time.
• Cohort study strengths and weaknesses: Cohort studies are applied to rare exposures; study multiple diseases simultaneously; provide a high level of evidence; expensive; long duration.
• Prevalence vs. incidence rate: Prevalence is the proportion of people affected by a disease in a population at a specific time, while incidence rate is the rate of new cases of a disease in a population over a certain period.
• Case-control study purpose and weaknesses: Case-control studies are used when studying a rare disease, evaluating multiple exposures; can have a greater risk, due to bias, in recalling exposures and have a challenge in the design of such a study.
• Classification of etiological studies and difference from descriptive: Etiological studies investigate associations between factors and events while descriptive studies do not have a comparison group.

True/False Questions

• Incidence rate expression: The incidence rate is expressed as the number of individuals who developed the disease divided by the total observed person-time, which is true.
• Cohort studies application: Cohort studies are not applied to common diseases, which is false.
• Prevalence definition: Prevalence indicates the magnitude of a health problem at a specific time. This is true.
• Case-control studies & bias: Case-control studies have a higher risk of exposure bias compared to cohort studies, this is false.
• Cumulative incidence and incidence rate equivalence: Cumulative incidence and incidence rate are not the same measure in epidemiology. This is false.