Society Shaking Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of a range of diseases; with its main focuses being to identify patterns to further help us to understand why these diseases are occurring. This includes analysing people’s circumstances, identifying possible causes of disease, and determining effective strategies to prevent and control the disease within society.
The process of an epidemiology is as follows. They first establish that a problem exists, and highlight the importance of having this research for society. They then confirm that the disease happens in people with similar circumstances and situations, which is labelled as the first descriptive study. This provides information on patterns, frequency, environments and the time period in which they were affected. …show more content…
This was conducted by Richard Doll, and he began by researching patients with lung cancer, figuring out differences and similarities within their sex, age, geographical location, smoking habits and diet. The link was high with smokers and the incidence of lung cancer, suggesting to him that smoking was the cause, which sparked his hypothesis. A cohort study was then set up in 1951 by A.B Hill, which proved the initial idea that smoking was linked with lung cancer, but extended this by finding out that the greater number of cigarettes smoked resulted in a higher chance of mortality. This was then repeated again in 1960 by Horn from the US. He concluded that there was a 10 times higher chance of dying from lung cancer if you were a smoker. Smoking was very popular within this time period, and was beginning to become increasingly popular within the woman of society. In this graph, you can see that the incidence of lung cancer within females has significantly increased since 1982, whereas the male diagnoses is relatively stable. This can also be seen within figure 2, as the mortality and incidence of lung cancer within males is lessening slightly, but within females it continues to …show more content…
Since 1980, the 2013 National Drug Strategy Household Survey Report shows that adult smokers have nearly halved, proving that the publications do impact some members of the public. Although the findings are so publically reported and aim to deter society, there is still a significant proportion of people, accumulating to around 13.3% of adults who still smoke regularly. This shows that even if there may be deterrence it is up to the general public and individuals to decide if they will follow it.
The advantages and disadvantages of an epidemiology seem to be quite clear. For case-control studies, the pros are that they are inexpensive compared to other types of research, they are less time consuming, efficient for observing unusual outcomes, and can watch multiple exposures at one time. The disadvantages come mainly from the subject themselves, as it is heavily relied upon their own personal memory and recall, and it is difficult to establish a clear chronological exposure and outcome from this. Cohort studies have the ability to watch over multiple effects, good for exposures with long latency periods, is a more direct measure, and can represent clear chronological relationships with the subject, because it goes over a large period of time. This links to the disadvantages, as it is expensive

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