The Importance of Epidemiology in Health

Epidemiology
Student's Name
Course
Professor's Name
University
City (State)
Date
Epidemiology
Epidemiology is usually defined as studying "the distribution and determinants of a disease in a population." Therefore, epidemiology essentially focuses on the population, and epidemiologists identify that narratives about individuals cannot be employed to negate evidence about populations. For instance, a narrative about someone who smokes a pack of cigarettes a day and lives to be 100 years old, or that someone never smokes and eventually develops lung cancer does not dispute the evidence that people who smoke one cigarette pack/per day are ten times more vulnerable to develop lung cancer. Likewise, narratives about individual epidemiologists' ethical or unethical behavior cannot approve or negate evidence of general trends (Friis & Sellers, 2020).
Importance of Epidemiology in Health
Epidemiology is among the tools which are employed in public health. Understanding the population's disease burden is critical to health authorities, who seek to maximize the use of inadequate resources by classifying priority health plans for prevention and care. Epidemiology also focuses on the course and outcome of individual and group diseases (natural history). Thus, epidemiology is a baseline medical science whose objective is to improve the population’s health, mainly the health of the disadvantaged. According to the research question, various types of epidemiological studies could be employed to study certain health-related characteristics, i.e., etiology (case-control study), epidemic (cross-sectional study), incidence (cohort study), and intervention (clinical trial) (Murariu et al., 2019).
From several perspectives, epidemiological studies on population health are principally useful. First, it helps determine the number of patients in the population, that is, the prevalence of pathology. Research studies permit the revealing of disadvantaged groups from a socio-economic perspective and those at enlarged risk of infection. Second, epidemiological research can understand the real needs of professional treatment, the labor force in the health care system and help introduce priority programs for prevention and treatment assistance at this level. Third, analytical epidemiological research allows establishing pivotal relationships between diseases and risk factors, allowing new and more effective treatments or materials to be introduced into practice (Friis & Sellers 2020).
The interest of researchers in clinical epidemiology has increased in recent years, and the utilization of epidemiological methods in various clinical activities is a feature that considers medical staff and hospital administrators, and political makers. Descriptive analysis of epidemiology is required for the valuation of population health, which could impact the analytical studies or the possibility of diseases on the prevalence of diseases. This can be even more complicated and can target the normal relationship concerning diseases and associated risks. In addition, the proper handling of the clinical practices and experimental studies of the epidemiology can be very helpful in creating new drugs, therapeutic approaches, and dental eq...