Descriptive epidemiology relates to “analysis of disease patterns according to the characteristics of person, place, and time” (Aschengrau & Seage III, 2003 p. 95). A person is analyzed using characteristics age, sex, race and ethnic group, socioeconomic status, occupation, religion, and marital status. “Place” examines geopolitical units such as countries, and natural physical features such as presence of large water bodies. “Time” analyzes the changes in disease occurrence and intensity. These factors are analyzed in the website Physicians Committee For Responsible Medicine (PCRM). Measures of disease frequency analyze the rate at which complications develop in the sample. It also considers the proportion of the selected group who are at risk of developing new diseases such as heart failure. Incidence is a measure that indicates the new occurrences of a disease under study in the population.
Measures of disease frequency
One measure is the number of individuals who are identified with the disease. In the website, the prevalence of obesity in the past 20 years is said to be about 5 million youths aged between 6 to 17 years (PCRM “Weight control and Obesity Prevention in Children” n.d.). Count identifies the size of the population with the disease.
Proportion has been used in the form of percentages. The webpage gives the proportion of prevalence ascribed to sex “about 12% for boys and 7% for girls” (PCRM “Weight control and Obesity Prevention in Children” n.d.).
Ratio indicates people in the affected group who meet another criterion (PENN STATE “Measures of Disease Frequency”, 2012). An example is that “60 percent of overweight five- to ten-year-olds already have at least one risk factor for heart disease” (PCRM “Weight control and Obesity Prevention in Children”, n.d.).
Rate indicates a fraction of the group who are likely to develop complications. On the webpage an example is when they describe that “obese seven-year-olds had nearly four and a half times the risk of having metabolic syndrome in adulthood than non-obese peers” (n.a. “PCRM, Weight control and Obesity Prevention in Children”).
Risk as a factor indicates the portion that has the ability to develop the disease under study (Bonita, Beaglehole & Tord, 2006). Risk and rate as measures of disease frequency are reliant on time (PENN STATE “Measures of Disease Frequency”, 2012).
Descriptive epidemiology
The article uses “time” to show changes that have taken place over the decades. An example is “the number of young overweight four- to five-year-olds girls nearly doubled between the early 1970s and the early 1990s” (PCRM, n.d. “Weight Control and Obesity Prevention in Children”).
On the part of the “person”, the article uses different ages of children such as those aged between 4 – 5 years, and 6 – 17 years. It uses sex also to distinguish groups between percentages for boys and girls in some cases of prevalence. It mentions the significant role played by family traits, genetics, and environmental influences to those children who develop obesity.
Left out information
The webpage is mainly about prevention of obesity and overweight in children. The author has left out the analysis where children are already obese. The reader has been spared the need to read the complexity of genetics in influencing the development of obesity. In the measures of frequency, “incidence” which indicates the rate of new occurrences has not been posted (Bonita, Beaglehole & Tord, 2006). The main measures of disease frequency have been used but for different child age groups.
References
Aschengrau, A., & Seage III, G.R. (2003). Essentials of Epidemiology in Public Health. London, UK: Jones and Bartlett Publishers.
Bonita, R., Beaglehole, R. & Kjellstrom, T. (2006). Basic epidemiology. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization.
PENN STATE, Measures of Disease Frequency. (2012).Pennsylvania State University. Web.
PCRM, Weight Control and Obesity Prevention in Children. (n.d). Web.