Introduction
Epidemiology is the study of health patterns, characteristics and events in a given society. It solely depends on statistical data and records in coming up with health policies which are developed after critically analyzing, interpreting and evaluating them.
This essay compares and contrasts the epidemiology measures adopted by doctors, the government and the public in controlling mortality, morbidity and disability. In the first of this article we will look at the definition, categories, types and the control measures of mortality that have been put in place. The second part talks about Disability. The different types and the some control measures are discussed in this part. The last part involves morbidity. Lastly, some differences in the control measures of disability and mortality from the ones of morbidity are briefly discussed in this part.
Conclusion
Mortality, morbidity and disability are can all be categorized according to their cause, the age of the people affected or the sex of the victims. As we have seen in this article statistical data of the above three is collected, analyzed and presented using very different methods. The statistics are very important due to the fact that they form a basis for the development of health policies and evaluation of the overall health situation. This is the reason why the World Health Organization (WHO) came up with a curriculum that had the guide lines of collecting, analyzing and interpreting statistical data concerning mortality and morbidity. Countries that have unreliable data concerning the above three tend to have incompetent and poor health care since their policies are developed from inaccurate information. A good example is the Sub-Saharan Africa as we have seen in this article.
Mortality
Mortality can be defined in simple terms as the number of deaths that occur in a given population, (Diffen, 2011). Statistical data concerning mortality rate is very important to a country for the prediction of future occurrences in the health of the public and evaluating the performance of health policies. It is evident especially in the developing countries e.g. the Sub-Saharan Africa that mortality and morbidity statistical data is not reliable since it does not represent the actual situation on the ground. For this reason, the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Federation of Health Records came up with the “International Training and Certification Program (ITCP)” whose main objective was to improve the quality and reliability of health statistics including mortality statistics (Marjorie et al, 2010, p 1).
Health statistical information is important in evaluating the progress of a country and also helps developing estimates that assists in allocation of resources, development of health policies, planning and evaluating the overall outcomes etc. For any data to be termed as information of high quality it must be consistent, timely and represent the actual situation on the ground. This is in accordance with the remarks of one English statistician by the name William Farr who quoted that, “Death is a fact. All else is inference” (Answers, 2011, pp 2). By this he meant that death is certain and everyone must face it but all other assumptions concerning it is not certain. He had realized that mortality statistics had a lot of errors and he recommended that the people who developed this data be more keen and avoid assumptions. Usually it is hard to determine the real cause of death if it is sudden and unexpected. Some of the most certain causes are either by motor vehicle accident or when one is shot all the other causes depend on the results of an autopsy which are never 100% accurate.
Mortality can be categorized into different types depending on several factors e.g. sex, age and the cause of death of the victim. Some of these categories include, infant mortality rate, standardized mortality, crude death rate, child mortality, maternal mortality rates etc. these categories are discussed below.
Maternal mortality rates involve the number of deaths of women caused by pregnancy puerperal and postpartum complications. It does not consider factors like how old the pregnancy is and its outcomes e.g. live birth or stillbirth. In other words if a mother dies giving birth and the new born child survives this is still considered as a maternal death. In developing third world countries maternal mortality is usually relatively higher than in the developed countries (Answers, 2011).
Infant mortality represents the number of deaths of children under the age of one year over the total number of live born infants for a period of one year. Infant mortality is mostly used in determining the economic and social status of a country since its directly affected by both of them. Most countries use these statistics to determine the standard health care of women during pregnancy and immediately after. Infant mortality can be further sub divide into perinatal mortality and neonatal mortality rates. Perinatal mortality rate represents the number of deaths of newly born infants (up to seven days old) over a thousand live births. Neonatal mortality rate on the other hand represents the number of deaths of infants between seven days and 28 days over a thousand live births (Answers, 2011).
Standardized mortality comprises of the number of deaths of a specific population e.g. a specified age or sex. This data is usually mainly used in comparing and planning about two groups of people that may be affected by an identified or an unidentified course of death (Answers, 2011).
Lastly there is crude mortality rate also referred to as crude death rate. This represents a fraction of dead people in a thousand people. It’s more generalized since it includes all ages and sexes and therefore it cannot be relied upon in evaluating or policy development. In most countries USA included the above statistics are collected and mainly developed by the issuers of death certificates since they have access to the cause of death and other personal information about the victims. This does not mean that they are the only one who collect and present such data some hospitals and researchers play a significant role in this.
Disability
Disability is the state of being unable to comfortably perform normal chores and activities as a result of mental or physical unfitness. The impairment can either be permanent or temporary and they are grouped into different types and categories depending on the part of the body or the function affected. Some examples include cognitive impairment, dexterity impairment, and elderly impairment, hearing impairment, leaning disability and mobility disability (Industry Canada, 2010). Most of the victims who are affected tend to not believe that they are disabled when asked.teh types and categories of disabilities are discussed below.
Cognitive impairment also referred to as intellectual impairment is form of disability that affects the thinking ability of a person. A victim of this form of impairment finds it hard to concentrate and formulate new innovative ideas. Another effect of this form of impairment is that it affects the comprehension and memorizing ability of an individual. This clearly shows that there is no physical distinction between a normal and a person suffering from this form of impairment. The best way of controlling this is put setting up of home based health care centers that can help such people (Industry Canada, 2010).
In most cases cognitive impairment is assumed to be the same as learning disability whose effects are almost the same. The main difference is that cognitive impairment is most likely acquired later in life usually as a result of an accident. The other difference is that learning disability affects ones communication ability, both verbal and nonverbal.
Dexterity impairment involves impairment of the arms and fingers, people suffering from such kind of impairment have difficulties in performing normal daily chores commonly referred to as Activities of Daily Living (ADLs). The most common are difficulties in writing, typing and pressing object e.g. using a phone. They have no difficulty in communicating. It is important to note that even those people whose one arm is affected are put under this category.
Mobility impairment involves all the persons who have difficulties in using their legs or feet to move. Most of these people are forced to use the help of wheelchairs and other forms of artificial aid to help them move from one place to another. Recently some devices and machines, which required legs to be operated, have been modified and formulated in a way that they can be fully controlled using hands. This helped a lot in reducing the dependency of such people on others and nowadays most of them are self reliant.
Since Early 1980s disability levels have greatly reduced all over the world according to Elena, Christina and Gabriele (2005, p 20). This was as a result of improved health facilities and increased awareness among the population.
Morbidity
Morbidity involves the incidences of a disease in a population. Unlike mortality, morbidity cannot be measured using one single method but all methods consider things factors like absence of physical disability, conditions that are likely to cause death, absence of pain especially physical pain, emotional and social proper functioning. It is next to impossible o define the health status of a population due to the fact that different individuals have different health problems which may be hard to determine their effects in general terms. Some systems have been developed by researchers that may be used in measuring morbidity rate in a population e.g. PIM 2, SOFA, Glasgow Coma Scale, APACHE 2 and SAPS 2 and 3 (Answers, 2011).Morbidity can be compared between different ages and sexes using the above mentioned systems though morbidity is greatly determined by how exposed one is to an infection or the behavior of the person.
According to a research which used data collected for 14 years by Pubmed (2005, pp 1), women tend to fall sick more often that men during their early adolescent years to late mid ages. However, this is not displayed in the mortality rate in other words they fall sick more often but they don’t die from these diseases. On the other hand more men die from chronic diseases than women and this is due to the fact that men tend to adopt a smoking habit that exposes them to this diseases.
References
Answers. (2011). Death Rate. (pp 1-9). Web.
Diffen. (2011). Morbidity vs Mortality. Web.
Elena, M., Christina, W. and Gabriele, D. (2005). Report on analysis of age profiles of key morbidity and mortality events Part 1: Trends in morbidity and mortality. (p 20) Rostock: University of Rostock.
Industry Canada. (2010). List of all disability types and definitions: All Categories. Web.
Marjorie, S. Greenberg, M. A., Margaret, A. and Fahima. F. (2010). International Training and Certification Program: A Regional Approach (p 1). Web.
Pubmed. (2005). Sex differences in morbidity and mortality. (pp 1). Web.