-Describing the burden of a health problem in a population
-Determining the allocation of health resources such as facilities and personnel


Boston University

In epidemiology, prevalence is the proportion of a particular population found to be affected by a medical condition at a specific time.

Prevalence

8th Edition by Thomas Bodenheimer and Kevin Grumbach

Understanding Health Policy: A Clinical Approach

-Provides an indication of the extent of a health problem
-Incidence and prevalence are typically pretty close (but a big difference in chronic diseases)
-Point prevalence = number of cases/total number in the group at a point in time


Interpretation of prevalence

-Is the number of cases of the disease during a time period (average pop at the midpoint)                
-With period prevalence, cases are counted even if they die, migrate, or recur


Point Prevalence

Uses of Prevalence

-Prevalence data is not useful to study disease etiology because of the survival factor
-May skew results and wouldn’t be as accurate
-Disease prevalence is not a measure of the risk of developing a disease
-Useful for knowing the extent of the disease and how to allocate resources


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