How Descriptive Epidemiology Provide Clues as to the Causes of Disease

Epidemiology Discussion 4
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Epidemiology Discussion 5
Descriptive epidemiology provides clues about the causes of disease by describing an epidemic as what, who, where, when, and why. It aims to provide as much information as to the characteristics of an epidemiological event using five categories: case definition, place, causes of transmission, person, place, and time. By compiling and analyzing these data, epidemiologists can pinpoint disease causes with sufficient accuracy. This process usually involves familiarizing with the data first to understand what can or cannot be understood. Using available data, the epidemiologists then investigate the epidemic's scope and pattern in terms of time, location, and persons affected. Plotting health-related states or events over time allows the epidemiologist to hypothesize possible determinants of disease. If a disease occurs only in the summer, then that is when the epidemiologist searches for causal factors (Merrill, 2021). If it only occurs in a parti...