Important epidemiologic indicators like incidence and prevalence help with illness evaluation and life-saving efforts. Researchers use prevalence to calculate the overall number of disease cases in a population over time in relation to the size of the population. To calculate how frequent new cases of the disease are over a given time period in relation to the size of the population at risk, epidemiologists utilize incidence (Curley, 2019).
Incidence is crucial, as it provides a foundation for risk assessment. On the other hand, prevalence is crucial because it provides epidemiologists with information on the burden of a disease over a given time period (Curley, 2019). Hence, prevalence and incidence are crucial measures, as they give crucial data for risk assessment.
Two examples can prove the importance of calculating. HIV, whose prevalence rates are much greater than its incidence rates, is one disease for which prevalence and incidence measures can be employed. This is because the survival rate of HIV has risen, resulting in a stable portion of the population with the affliction (Friis & Sellers, 2020).
The second example is using these measurements with meningococcal infections. As the afflicted do not develop an immunity to meningococcal infections, they can infect a person multiple times, resulting in its incidence rate being substantially higher than its prevalence rate (Friis & Sellers, 2020). Hence, prevalence and incidence can be used in examples of HIV and meningococcal infections.
Without these measurements, the epidemiological research would face significant limitations. Without measuring prevalence, researchers would not be able to understand the scale of the infection among the population. Moreover, without incidence, epidemiologists would not be able to assess the speed at which a disease spreads (Rassen et al., 2018). Therefore, epidemiologists would not be able to determine the proportion of an affected population or the rate at which an infection spreads without incidence and prevalence data.
References
Curley, A. L. (2019). Population-Based Nursing: Concepts and Competencies for Advanced Practice (3rd ed.). Springer.
Friis, R. H. & Sellers, T. (2020). Epidemiology for Public Health Practice (6th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning.
Rassen, J. A., Bartels, D. B., Schneeweiss, S., Patrick, A. R., & Murk, W. (2018) Measuring prevalence and incidence of chronic conditions in claims and electronic health record databases. Clinical Epidemiology, 11, 1-15.