Part 1.True/False.
1.The three questions to ask in epidemiology are when, where and why
2.The Framingham study was important for our understanding of the connection between smoking and cancer
3.Autism rates have increased due to more cases falling under the revised definition of the disease
Part 2. Fill in the blank.
1.——— is considered the father of epidemiology due to his work stopping an outbreak of cholera in London.
2.PAR stands for————and is the total number of people susceptible to a disease.
3.A drug trial which is double blind and placebo controlled is an example of a————study.
Part 3. Multiple choice questions.
1.Data is collected on all of the following events as part of vital statistics except as part of vital statistics except
a. Hospitalizations
b. Births
c. Deaths
d. All of the above are collected
2.Which of the following statements about the Tuskegee syphilis study is true?
a.The scientists deliberately infected the subjects with the syphilis bacteria.
b.The subjects were deceived about the purpose of the study.
c.The scientists conducted the study because they wanted to help the men.
d.The subjects were treated with penicillin as soon as the antibiotic was discovered.
3. The Long Island Breast Cancer Study tested the hypothesis that environmental pollution was causing the relatively high rates of breast cancer among residents of Suffolk and Nassau counties of New York. Epidemiologists identified a group of 1,420 women who were diagnosed with breast cancer between 1984 and 1986 and compared their residential histories over a 20 year period with those of a matched group of healthy women. What kind of epidemiological study was this?
a.Cohort
b.Prospective
c.Case-control
d.Intervention
4. To avoid false negatives in a screening program to detect breast cancer among women over 50 years of age, the test must be
a. Highly specific b. Highly relevant c. Double-blind d. Highly sensitive
5. From an epidemiologic perspective, which of the following is not true of chronic diseases?
a.They are more difficult to study than infectious diseases.
b. They are more likely to be fatal than infectious diseases.
c. They usually take a long time to develop.
d. They usually have more than one cause
6. Which of the following statements is not true about the data collected by governments?
Census data is collected every 10 years.
It is used to plan public health programs.
Collecting data is more expensive than it is worth.
It can give an early indication that an epidemic is beginning
7. To compare the rates of pancreatic cancer among men and women, what should be done with the overall data on cancer rates?
a.Çalculate age-adjusted rates
b.Calculate gender-specific rates
c.Calculate crude rates
d.Calculate life expectancies
8.It is hard to conduct studies with human participants because:
a.It is hard to control human behavior
b.People may lie about their behavior during the study
c.People may not have the motivation to adhere to the study protocols
d.All of the above are reasons why it is hard to conduct studies with human participants
9. A low p-value means:
a.Cause and effect has been established
b.There is a low probablity that the result occurred by chance
c. There is a low probability that the result is real
d. The test has a high power
10. Which of the following is not true of cohort studies?
a.Subjects choose for themselves what their exposure is.
b. They usually take a long time to get results.
c. They require large numbers of subjects
d. they usually use a placebo
11. Which of the following statements about clinical trials of new drugs is true?
a.The FDA conducts clinical trials of all new drugs.
b.Clinical trials detect all harmful side effects of new drugs.
c.The best method of testing a new drug in a clinical trial is to compare it to a placebo
d.All clinical trials are required by law to be registered at the outset in a public database
12. In a study that tested the association between a new drug and its reduction in bladder cancer, 2000 middle-aged meh were split into two groups. One group were given the drug, while the other group were given nothing were tracked over a year to watch for the development of cancer. What is the most likely source of error in this study?
a.Confounding variables
b.Selection bias
c.The placebo effect
d.Reporting bias
13. An epidemiologist investigating an outbreak of encephalitis in New York City reports that there have been 17 new cases this week. Which of the following terms best describes the number he reports?
a.Prevalence of encephalitis
b.Population at risk of encephalitis
c.Determinants of encephalitis
d.incidence of encephalitis
Part 3.
1. Why is it important that we use statistics in public health? Please explain your answer.
2. Chapter 8 describes many different survey instruments that are used to collect information on the health of the public in the United States. What is the advantage to using many different surveys instead of just relying on the census?
3. As described in the text, Hepatitis A is a foodborne illness from Hepatitis A virus. If you were an epidemiologist and you were called in to investigate a potential outbreak, outline what you would do. Where would you go, who would you talk to, and what would you ask them?
4. The Nurses' Health Study is one example of a cohort study. Often the results found in these studies are widely reported and believed within the scientific community. Why might an association shown in a cohort study be believed more than other types of epidemiologic studies? Please include at least 2 reasons in your answer.
5. There were three main sources of error that were discussed in module 2; random variation, confounding variables and bias. Choose one of these and explain why this is important to understand when determining the validity of experimental data. Also be sure to include an example.
6. When you reviewed the public health survey from 1962, discuss at least two specific things that were included related to the health of the family being interviewed.
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