4.5: Burden of Disease and Epidemiology
- Page ID
- 124747
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\(\newcommand{\avec}{\mathbf a}\) \(\newcommand{\bvec}{\mathbf b}\) \(\newcommand{\cvec}{\mathbf c}\) \(\newcommand{\dvec}{\mathbf d}\) \(\newcommand{\dtil}{\widetilde{\mathbf d}}\) \(\newcommand{\evec}{\mathbf e}\) \(\newcommand{\fvec}{\mathbf f}\) \(\newcommand{\nvec}{\mathbf n}\) \(\newcommand{\pvec}{\mathbf p}\) \(\newcommand{\qvec}{\mathbf q}\) \(\newcommand{\svec}{\mathbf s}\) \(\newcommand{\tvec}{\mathbf t}\) \(\newcommand{\uvec}{\mathbf u}\) \(\newcommand{\vvec}{\mathbf v}\) \(\newcommand{\wvec}{\mathbf w}\) \(\newcommand{\xvec}{\mathbf x}\) \(\newcommand{\yvec}{\mathbf y}\) \(\newcommand{\zvec}{\mathbf z}\) \(\newcommand{\rvec}{\mathbf r}\) \(\newcommand{\mvec}{\mathbf m}\) \(\newcommand{\zerovec}{\mathbf 0}\) \(\newcommand{\onevec}{\mathbf 1}\) \(\newcommand{\real}{\mathbb R}\) \(\newcommand{\twovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\ctwovec}[2]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\threevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cthreevec}[3]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfourvec}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\fivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{r}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\cfivevec}[5]{\left[\begin{array}{c}#1 \\ #2 \\ #3 \\ #4 \\ #5 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\mattwo}[4]{\left[\begin{array}{rr}#1 \amp #2 \\ #3 \amp #4 \\ \end{array}\right]}\) \(\newcommand{\laspan}[1]{\text{Span}\{#1\}}\) \(\newcommand{\bcal}{\cal B}\) \(\newcommand{\ccal}{\cal C}\) \(\newcommand{\scal}{\cal S}\) \(\newcommand{\wcal}{\cal W}\) \(\newcommand{\ecal}{\cal E}\) \(\newcommand{\coords}[2]{\left\{#1\right\}_{#2}}\) \(\newcommand{\gray}[1]{\color{gray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\lgray}[1]{\color{lightgray}{#1}}\) \(\newcommand{\rank}{\operatorname{rank}}\) \(\newcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\col}{\text{Col}}\) \(\renewcommand{\row}{\text{Row}}\) \(\newcommand{\nul}{\text{Nul}}\) \(\newcommand{\var}{\text{Var}}\) \(\newcommand{\corr}{\text{corr}}\) \(\newcommand{\len}[1]{\left|#1\right|}\) \(\newcommand{\bbar}{\overline{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bhat}{\widehat{\bvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\bperp}{\bvec^\perp}\) \(\newcommand{\xhat}{\widehat{\xvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\vhat}{\widehat{\vvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\uhat}{\widehat{\uvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\what}{\widehat{\wvec}}\) \(\newcommand{\Sighat}{\widehat{\Sigma}}\) \(\newcommand{\lt}{<}\) \(\newcommand{\gt}{>}\) \(\newcommand{\amp}{&}\) \(\definecolor{fillinmathshade}{gray}{0.9}\)Deciding which diseases are most important is a complex challenge for governments and healthcare providers. While personal experience influences individual priorities, public health requires a population-level assessment. To allocate resources effectively, policymakers rely on the concept of burden of disease, which is the health consequences of the disease, including disability and fatal outcomes. Understanding this burden is crucial for developing interventions and delivering services to control the spread of disease, which helps to reduce population health inequities (National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Diseases, 2016).
Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Free for use under the Pixabay Content License; Wphoto via Pixabay https://pixabay.com/photos/quarantin...sease-4959919/When gathering data to analyze the burden of a disease, public health uses epidemiology methods to help gather and interpret data. Epidemiology is the study of diseases, health states, and health outcomes. Epidemiologists are especially interested in how diseases and conditions are distributed throughout populations and finding those factors that increase or decrease the risk of a particular disease, and finding the cause of the disease or condition. Epidemiologists attempt to study associations between "people" and "place"; this is called group association (Riegelman & Kirkwood, 2025). Questions that epidemiologists hope to answer are:
- Does a disease affect one population more than another? Does the number of people affected increase or decrease over time?
- What are the associations between biological factors, exposures to pathogens or toxins, the environment, and behaviors that could influence disease states and health outcomes?
- Are there ways to increase the average lifespan and make those years healthy and enjoyable?
- Can we still identify and stop a disease or condition from hurting more people even if we don’t know the exact cause?
Historically, epidemiology was first used to help identify causes and risk factors for infectious diseases. This is still an essential role for epidemiologists around the world, especially as we experience new and re-emerging contagious diseases. However, chronic diseases, behavioral health problems, injuries, and violence are now also studied using epidemiology techniques.
In this chapter, we’ll go over some of the basic tools that epidemiologists use to understand health problems and potentially how to solve them.
Reference
National Collaborating Centre for Infectious Disease. (2016). More than just numbers: Exploring the concept of 'burden of disease". https://nccid.ca/publications/explor...en-of-disease/
Riegelman, R., & Kirkwood, B. (2025). Public health 101: Improving community health (4rd ed.). Burlington, MA: Jones & Bartlett Learning.