Learning Objective

- To understand the role of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice
- To understand the medical and public health models of health and disease
- Epidemiology is the basic scientific tool with which public health professionals use to study disease. It is a perspective in which systematic observation is the basis on which grounded inferences can be made about observed phenomena.
- It is also an excellent tool that is being adopted by health sciences researchers to look at the effectiveness of health delivery services, and more specifically, medical interventions.
- More basic is the need to view Medicine as part of Public Health, rather than vice versa. In looking at health and disease, think of Medicine as the "Specialist" approach, and Public Health, the "Generalist" approach.

Performance Objective

- Basic understanding of the role Epidemiology plays in Public Health Practice
- Basic understanding of how health and disease are viewed from the Medical and Public Health perspectives
- Solutions to problems are based on how one frames the questions. So, when physicians and public health professionals disagree on how to address a health problem, it is because their perspectives are different. Being different doesn't necessarily mean either is wrong, when both may be right. Sometimes, the difference may all be in the sequence, or timing of events.
- Thus, an epidemiologist may be more adept in identifying and preventing the spread of disease among a population over time, but once the disease has spread within an individual, then it's time to call in the physician.