Psychology 2036A/B Chapter Notes - Chapter 2: Relative Risk, Null Hypothesis, Dependent And Independent Variables

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2036A/B
• Professor: Bruce Morrison

Document Summary

Epidemiology is the study of factors or determinants of health status among population groups and use of that knowledge to help control spread of health problems in population. Mortality vs. morbidity: mortality refers to death, morbidity refers to diseases that may contribute to mortality, when measuring mortality, raw data are total # of deaths in defined population. To compare mortality stats across 2+ countries, we must adjust for difference in size of populations by using rates. Incidence refers to number of new cases of disease in specific populations: we can examine how quickly disease is spreading through population by examining incidence of disease. Prevalence is total number of cases of specific disease in a population for a given time period. Relative risk is used to express risk to individuals of acquiring a specific disease. The 5 classic measures of the health of a population are: mortality, morbidity, incidence, prevalence, and relative risk.