Next talk on Epidemiology.

Welcome back. Before we begin, just a bit on lecture hall decorum. At the Vierk Institute, our division for pedagogy has suggestions for seating, which several studies show contribute to a much better learning.environment. I am asking all young ladies to move closer to your director instructor, right here at the front of the hall. The males can all go to the back higher levels of the room. That's it. I may have a few suggestions on female attire at a later time as well.
I'll henceforth refer to epidemiology as Epid, to save time. Few in medicine would not agree that Epid forms the backbone of public health. The craft basically is a meld between clinical medicine, and biostatistics. In clinical nursing and medicine, the focus typically is on the individual patint. In Epid, it's on populations, of various sorts, and, specifically, on rates/proportions of disease or health indices in these populations, and of their exposures to various factors. Naming these populations, and the exposures, provides a format for better describing the field, as follows:
Broadly speaking, the craft can be understood as consisting of three sub fields, again with reference to populations. At a basic level, there is descriptive Epid, which attempts to study a population in terms of the rates of health/disease, and various exposures. Analytical Epid then attempts to understand how these are linked causally, using varioius study designs and analyses. Finally, clinical Epid applies various principles to understand and to predict how various interventions, individually, or on populations, affect health outcomes. In large part, much of the predictive work on just how to best respond to C-19 combines ideas from all three of these subfields, mostly of the last.
A listing of types of exposures and "outcomes" (illnesses/health), is one way to understand the various divisions of the field.
So, there are infectious and chronic disease branches of the field. Examples of these include the study of viruses, as now with C-19, in the former, and a focus on, say, cancers, or obesity, in the latter.. There's psychiatric Epid, to keep the beauticians of medicine busy. Epid of the workplace, of accidents, and so on. Likewise, the divisions of Epid can be cast in terms of exposures. So we have environmental, radiation, stressor, and other branches of the field. Even the best uses of health services yield to Epid study approaches.. Most recently, genetic and molecular parts of the science have become quite important.
OK, class dismissed, except for those three young ladies to my right, with high hemline skirts, deep cut tops, and the FM red high heels going. Please retreat to my office after class.