Are the following statements about epidemiology true or false?

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Last updated: October 29, 2026 • View editorial policy

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Epidemiology Quiz Answers

Question 1: False

Epidemiology does NOT primarily focus only on investigating outbreaks of infectious disease. While outbreak investigation is an important component, epidemiology encompasses a much broader scope. It is the study of the distribution and determinants of health-related states or events in specified populations, and the application of this study to control health problems 1. This includes chronic diseases, injuries, environmental exposures, and social determinants of health—not just infectious disease outbreaks.

Question 2: True

Age-adjusted mortality rates are superior to crude mortality rates for understanding disease impact across populations. Age adjustment removes the confounding effect of different age distributions between populations, allowing for valid comparisons. Crude rates can be misleading when comparing populations with different age structures, as many diseases have strong age-related patterns.

Question 3: True

For successful implementation of a screening program, the test and testing process must be acceptable to the general population. Acceptability affects participation rates, which directly impacts the program's effectiveness and public health benefit. Even highly accurate tests will fail as screening tools if the target population refuses to participate due to concerns about invasiveness, discomfort, cost, or other barriers.

Question 4: False

Analyzing health indicators by person, place, and time is characteristic of DESCRIPTIVE epidemiology, not analytic epidemiology. Descriptive epidemiology describes the distribution of disease (who, where, when), while analytic epidemiology tests specific hypotheses about associations between exposures and outcomes using study designs like cohort studies and case-control studies 2.

Question 5: True

Janet Lane-Claypon did conduct pioneering case-control studies identifying risk factors for breast cancer. She compared women with breast cancer (cases) to women without breast cancer (controls) to determine factors associated with disease development, establishing foundational methodology for modern case-control study design.

Question 6: True

Public health surveillance is specifically used to identify changes in disease patterns. Surveillance systems continuously and systematically collect, analyze, and interpret health data to detect emerging threats, monitor trends, guide interventions, and evaluate control measures. This is a core function of public health practice.

Question 7: True

Death certificates provide essential data for calculating mortality rates, determining leading causes of death, and generating death-related statistics. These vital records are the primary source for mortality surveillance and epidemiologic analysis of death patterns in populations, despite some limitations in accuracy of cause-of-death reporting.

Question 8: True

Consistency of association across multiple studies strengthens causal inference by demonstrating reproducibility. When different investigators in different populations using different methods observe similar associations between an exposure and outcome, this reduces the likelihood that the finding is due to chance, bias, or confounding 3, 4. Consistency is one of the Bradford Hill criteria for causation.

Question 9: True

Outbreak and cluster investigations follow essentially the same systematic steps. Both require: confirming the existence of excess cases, establishing case definitions, identifying and counting cases, describing cases by person/place/time, developing hypotheses, testing hypotheses through analytic studies, implementing control measures, and communicating findings. The terminology differs but the investigative approach is parallel.

Question 10: False

Confounding is NOT a systematic error in data collection—it is a bias in the ANALYSIS or INTERPRETATION of associations. Confounding occurs when a third variable is associated with both the exposure and outcome, distorting the apparent relationship between them. Systematic errors in data collection are classified as information bias (measurement error) or selection bias, not confounding 2. Confounding is addressed through study design (randomization, restriction, matching) or statistical adjustment, not improved data collection techniques.

References

1
Research

Reassessing the role of epidemiology in public health.

American journal of public health, 1999

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