Pandemic and Epidemic Diseases
Answer the following questions:
- What are the characteristics that distinguish pandemic disease from epidemic disease? Name some examples of notorious pandemics that occurred in history. Why did the Spanish Flu of 1918 qualify as a pandemic? In giving your answer, be sure to distinguish among the terms epidemic, pandemic, and endemic.
- How does quantification support the accomplishment of the four aims of epidemiology?
- How did Koch’s postulates contribute to the advancement of epidemiology? To what extent is identification of specific agent factors a prerequisite for tracking down the causes of disease outbreaks?
- What are the characteristics that distinguish pandemic disease from epidemic disease? Name some examples of notorious pandemics that occurred in history. Why did the Spanish Flu of 1918 qualify as a pandemic? In giving your answer, be sure to distinguish among the terms epidemic, pandemic, and endemic.
- Identify some infectious diseases that could reach pandemic occurrence during the 21st century. What conditions do you believe exist at present that could incite the occurrence of pandemics? Why have public health officials been concerned about the emergence of new diseases such as “bird flu”? Speculate about what might happen to organized society and the healthcare system should an outbreak of pandemic influenza occur.
- The Black Death that occurred during the Middle Ages eradicated a large proportion of the world population at that time. Estimate how likely it would be for a similar epidemic of plague to develop during the current decade.
- In developed countries, many safeguards exist for the prevention of foodborne illness. Discuss how it would be possible for a foodborne illness outbreak such as the one caused by E. coli to erupt in a developed country.
- On the basis of your own ideas, discuss how epidemiology can help to discover the causes of outbreaks of new epidemic diseases, e.g., Ebola Virus Disease. To what extent is it possible to control epidemic diseases without having precise information about their causal agents? This question also relates to question 12.
- What is the definition of health disparities? Give some examples from your own observations or examples that you may have read about in the media. Find some examples of research on health disparities in a professional journal such as the American Journal of Public Health or the American Journal of Epidemiology.
- How would you account for racial and ethnic disparities in age-adjusted mortality from heart disease and stroke in the United States?
