NR503 Week 4 Open Forum Discussion

NR503 Week 4 Open Forum Discussion Instructions

Purpose

The ideas and beliefs underpinning the discussions guide students through engaging dialogues as they achieve the desired learning outcomes/competencies associated with their course in a manner that empowers them to organize, integrate, apply and critically appraise their knowledge to their selected field of practice. The use of discussions provides students with opportunities to contribute level-appropriate knowledge and experience to the topic in a safe, caring, and fluid environment that models professional and social interaction.

The ebb and flow of a discussion is based upon the composition of student and faculty interaction in the quest for relevant scholarship. Participation in the discussion generates opportunities for students to actively engage in the written ideas of others by carefully reading, researching, reflecting, and responding to the contributions of their peers and course faculty. Discussions foster the development of members into a community of learners as they share ideas and inquiries, consider perspectives that may be different from their own, and integrate knowledge from other disciplines.

NR503 Week 4 Open Forum Discussion Example

Important Sources of Epidemiological Data

Epidemiology is the study of incidence, distribution, and control of diseases and health-related factors. Epidemiology is divided into descriptive and analytical epidemiology. Descriptive epidemiology characterizes the disease’s distribution in terms of time, person, and place within a population. As the name suggests, descriptive epidemiology describes disease and health-related patterns without influencing them. They present raw data as it is. Analytical epidemiology tests hypotheses to test causal relationships between a risk factor or causative agent and a disease. This discussion focuses on the primary and secondary sources of epidemiological data.

Primary data sources are data collected by a researcher for a specific purpose. For example, a researcher can visit a community and test its members for a disease such as COVID-19 to determine prevalence and incidence rates (Park et al., 2019). Such data includes clinical trials, case studies, and cohort studies. They are expensive and time-consuming and may require more time than available.

Groenewegen et al. (2020) demonstrate that primary data sources, such as cohort studies, yield the most reliable data. Researchers prepare research studies and implement them to produce analytical data and make inferences from the data. Primary data sources are used when secondary epidemiological data sources are unavailable, which are data collected by other individuals or organizations that are relevant to the issue of interest. 

Secondary sources of data are data that have already been collected, but for different reasons. Data is passively collected and analyzed daily in healthcare institutions. Data are passively reported from hospital registers, including birth and death registers, antenatal and postnatal clinic registers, and hospital admission registers (Wu et al., 2019). Therese registers, in addition to population census, public health department case reports, and surveys, are vital sources of secondary epidemiological data.

Secondary sources can be used singly or collectively to derive epidemiological data (Park et al., 2019). For example, a researcher can study case reports, incidence reports, and death certificates from various healthcare institutions to gain a deeper understanding of cancer epidemiology. A researcher wishing to understand perinatal mortality will consult antenatal registers, birth registers, and postnatal registers. Secondary data is less accurate than primary data, but it is less time-consuming and costly.

Tertiary sources of epidemiologic data include analysis of other studies. Various organizations produce epidemiological data, such as the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality. In addition, government websites contain vital data from various sources, such as censuses and studies conducted. They collect and analyze primary and secondary data to produce reliable and comprehensive reports.

Analysis of epidemiologic data from these organizations is a reliable and essential source of epidemiologic information (Baardman & Bolling, 2019). Individuals or researchers seeking to understand the epidemiology of a particular disease can rely on these websites for reliable and accurate data. These organizations collaborate with institutions that have large laboratories and research facilities, which conduct studies that produce reliable data. They also fund research and collaborate with local and federal governments to produce data; therefore,, they are among the most critical data sources.

Conclusion

Primary, secondary, and tertiary sources of epidemiologic data are integral to addressing healthcare problems. Understanding these data sources ensures that a researcher obtains reliable, relevant, and representative information. This information then helps make vital decisions that produce the desired outcomes of disease surveillance and control.

References

Baardman, R., & Bolling, M. C. (2022). The Importance of Accurate Epidemiological Data on Epidermolysis Bullosa. The British Journal of Dermatology, 186(5), 765. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjd.21295

Wu, Y., Yang, Y., Nishiura, H., & Saitoh, M. (2018, June). Deep learning for epidemiological predictions. The 41st International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research & Development in Information Retrieval (pp. 1085-1088). https://doi.org/10.1145/3209978.3210077

Park, M., Cook, A. R., Lim, J. T., Sun, Y., & Dickens, B. L. (2020). A systematic review of COVID-19 epidemiology based on current evidence. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 9(4), 967. https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm9040967

Groenewegen, A., Rutten, F. H., Mosterd, A., & Hoes, A. W. (2020). Epidemiology of heart failure. European Journal Of Heart Failure, 22(8), 1342-1356. https://doi.org/10.1002/ejhf.1858