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Our understanding of the causes of disease and attempts to reduce
it's impact generally evolves over time. Successive research
studies answer research questions that were not answered
previously.
This slide illustrates how epidemiologic knowledge progresses
through repeated and successive studies of the same outcome.
These studies take advantage of the temporal nature of the
cause-effect relation (ie. Causes precede Effects). As one moves
from left to right on the x-axis, our knowledge about the causes
for a disease or injury increases. This is true for injuries
from falls in the elderly, as it is for heart disease, or our
study of diabetes.
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