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4. Cholera
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
Cholera is caused by ingesting water contaminated with infected fecal matter. The disease spreads easily. Seven cholera pandemics have traveled the globe, the first starting in India in ...
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10. Epidemiology between ethics and politics
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
Epidemiological studies pose ethical problems, particularly concerning the confidentiality of identifiable personal data and the use of stored samples to carry out genetic and other tests. ...
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Epilogue
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
There will be more pandemics. A pandemic might come from an old, familiar foe such as influenza or might emerge from a new source—a zoonosis that makes its way into humans, perhaps. The ...
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4. Establishing the causes of a disease
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
‘Establishing the causes of a disease’ makes the point that any association between an exposure and a disease that is reasonably well established in a study needs to go through a process of ...
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6. Following up people’s health
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
In randomized controlled trials, subjects treated differently are followed up over time to observe the effects of the intervention (treatment). ‘Following up people's health’ points out ...
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9. From epidemiology to medicine, prevention, and public health
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
Epidemiology is an essential component of all public health activities that implement the organized efforts of society to promote, protect, and restore health. These comprise: clinical ...
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7. HIV/AIDS
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
HIV/AIDS had been percolating in central Africa since the early twentieth century, but it appeared in its now recognizable form in the spring of 1981. Doctors in America spotted a strange ...
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6. Influenza
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
The influenza that swept across the globe in three waves in 1918–1919 was the worst pandemic in history since the Black Death. Pandemic influenza had erupted before—most recently and ...
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Introduction
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
What are pandemics? The National Institutes of Health proposed pandemics must meet eight criteria: wide geographic extension, disease movement, high attack rates and explosiveness, minimal ...
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7. Investigating people’s past experiences
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
The selection of cases is the starting point of case-control studies and obeys the fundamental and rather obvious principle that they should come from the same study population as the ...
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3. Malaria
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
Malaria originated in Africa and is caused by an infection with the plasmodium protozoan. Five types have infected humans; Plasmodium falciparum is the most lethal and is responsible for ...
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8. Mapping health and disease
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
Intervention studies and observational studies are known as analytical studies. ‘Mapping health and disease’ emphasizes that these are generally preceded and followed by descriptive studies ...
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2. Measuring health and disease
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
For the purpose of epidemiological study, a disease can be defined either by creating a definition and regarding as cases the subjects that fit it or by accepting as cases those subjects ...
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1. Plague
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
The plague is a disease caused by a bacillus, Yersinia pestis, transmitted by the bite of an infected flea. ‘Plague’ identifies three main periods of the pandemic. It first appeared in the ...
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3. Searching for the causes of disease
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
‘Searching for the causes of disease’ defines a cause as a factor without which an effect — adverse or favourable — would not have happened. Epidemiologists try to identify factors — ...
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2. Smallpox
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
The world was declared smallpox-free in 1980, but this endemic and pandemic disease had killed hundreds of millions of people over the preceding millennium. Smallpox was first described in ...
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5. Testing how to control a disease
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
‘Testing how to control a disease’ lists key features of randomized controlled trials: the study design is always based on randomization; the choice of the study population is critical for ...
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5. Tuberculosis
Christian W. McMillen
in Pandemics: A Very Short Introduction
Tuberculosis, caused by Mycobacterium tuberculosis, emerged in Africa about seventy thousand years ago. It accompanied modern humans on their migrations out of Africa, across the Indian ...
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1. What is epidemiology?
Rodolfo Saracci
in Epidemiology: A Very Short Introduction
Epidemiology is defined as the study of all aspects of health at the level of population. Its scope includes the description of how diseases and, more generally, health-related conditions ...
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