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Epidemiology is the study of the patterns, causes, and effects of health and disease conditions in defined populations. It is the cornerstone of public health, and shapes policy decisions and evidence-based practice by identifying risk factors for disease and targets for preventive healthcare. Epidemiologists help with study design, collection, and statistical analysis of data, and interpretation and dissemination of results (including peer review and occasional systematic review). Epidemiology has helped develop methodology used in clinical research, public health studies, and, to a lesser extent, basic research in the biological sciences. Major areas of epidemiological study include disease etiology, transmission, outbreak investigation, disease surveillance and screening, biomonitoring, and comparisons of treatment effects such as in clinical trials. Epidemiologists rely on other scientific disciplines like biology to better understand disease processes, statistics to make efficient use of the data and draw appropriate conclusions, social sciences to better understand proximate and distal causes, and engineering for exposure assessment. == Etymology == ''Epidemiology'', literally meaning "the study of what is upon the people", is derived , suggesting that it applies only to human populations. However, the term is widely used in studies of zoological populations (veterinary epidemiology), although the term "epizoology" is available, and it has also been applied to studies of plant populations (botanical or plant disease epidemiology). The distinction between "epidemic" and "endemic" was first drawn by Hippocrates,〔Hippocrates. (~200BC). Airs, Waters, Places.〕 to distinguish between diseases that are "visited upon" a population (epidemic) from those that "reside within" a population (endemic).〔Carol Buck, Alvaro Llopis, Enrique Nájera, Milton Terris. (1998). The Challenge of Epidemiology: Issues and Selected Readings. Scientific Publication No. 505. Pan American Health Organization. Washington, DC. p3.〕 The term "epidemiology" appears to have first been used to describe the study of epidemics in 1802 by the Spanish physician Villalba in ''Epidemiología Española''.〔 Epidemiologists also study the interaction of diseases in a population, a condition known as a syndemic. The term epidemiology is now widely applied to cover the description and causation of not only epidemic disease, but of disease in general, and even many non-disease, health-related conditions, such as high blood pressure and obesity. Therefore, this epidemiology is based upon how the pattern of the disease cause changes in the function of everyone. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Epidemiology」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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