Running head: EPIDEMIOLOGY 1
EPIDEMIOLOGY 6
Epidemiology Research Draft
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Abstract
In the research at hand, I have that there are various study designs applicable in epidemiology. The study designs in question include Cohort studies, Clinical trials/randomized control trials, community trials, and Intervention studies. All these study designs are essential in human health and medical studies depending on the context of the study. In this research, the topic is concerned with the impact of how cohort effects and trends affect the outcomes of medical studies. In the annotated bibliography, there are two articles that elaborate on how these two factors mentioned above are likely to influence a given phenomenon. In the first article, the authors make it clear that cohort effects have a dimension in psychological health, especially when considering an aging population. In the second article, the authors also found that secular trends imply human health. This topic is subject to further research through a literature review of previous research on cohort effects and secular effects and how they impact epidemiology.
Discussion Outline
Epidemiology refers to related medical studies that in involve human health. The effectiveness of such study depends on the value of the questions in the study as well as the in formativeness of the data available to deal with the question of the study. In epidemiology, overarching considerations such as simplicity of the design and ethics are some of the factors that challenge studies in epidemiology. Consequentially researchers find it difficult to prescribe what is good in the study.
Nevertheless, epidemiology and the studies thereon are vital in drug discovery as well as the development of new treatment techniques. As a result, the study designs used in epidemiology form an important part of research and warrant a closer look. The study designs are as follows.
Clinical trials: these are also called randomized control trials. They are crucial for drug development because they help determine whether a drug is good for human treatment and consumption. In this design, the researcher selects a sample of patients who have the targeted condition in addition to meeting some other selection criteria to receive the drug or the treatment for the condition. A sham or placebo treatment is used on a control group. On the same note, the control and the experimental groups are followed for some time and measurements are taken to show the results if the clinical trials.
Community trials: community trials are known by another name as community interventions. Usually, community trials in epidemiology are concerned with the determination of the effectiveness of given preventive measures. Community trials use whole communities such as city, village or town. Every member of the community is targeted in the intervention. A good example is a vaccination against an outbreak of a disease in a major city.
Intervention study design is also clinical trials in which the efficacy of the drug is tested or the efficacy of different management strategies or regimens. Intervention studies take two forms namely
Controlled clinical trials where individual research subjects are assigned to a competing intervention or community-wide interventions in which an entire group is assigned an intervention.
Cohort studies
The temporal differences in cohort studies depend on whether the study is using prospective or retrospective data collection methods. Another distinction between cohort studies is whether a design uses an internal or external control group. In a study of workers with the same risk of occupational exposure, an internal control group will arise if the study sample comprises of workers who do not face the risk of occupational exposure.
Annotated bibliography
Keyes, K. M., Nicholson, R., Kinley, J., Raposo, S., Stein, M. B., Goldner, E. M., & Sareen, J. (2014). Age, period, and cohort effects in psychological distress in the United States and Canada. American journal of epidemiology, 179(10), 1216-1227.
In this study the authors claim that treatment for depression has increased in the United States. However, it is not clear whether the distribution of psychological distress on the population has changed over time. The study used survey from two countries i.e. United States and Canada through National Health Interview Survey and Canadian Community Health Survey where the researchers interviewed the people directly in their homes. The study showed that depression was prevalent based on factors such as period effect and cohort effects. This article is important for this research because it is informative and has depth on cohort effects and how they affect a research phenomenon. On the same note, the study helps to understand how human mental health is changing with time and the implications of factors such as age on it.
Hulman, A., Tabák, A. G., Nyari, T. A., Vistisen, D., Kivimäki, M., Brunner, E. J., & Witte, D. R. (2014). Effect of secular trends on age-related trajectories of cardiovascular risk factors: the Whitehall II longitudinal study 1985–2009. International journal of epidemiology, 43(3), 866-877.
This article will also come handy in my research because it researches how secular trends implicate the cardiovascular risk factors. This study is recent, which means that it brings in fresh perspectives on how secular trends affect the health of individuals. The study seeks to fill the gap that has been left by other studies in the relationship between ageing and secular trends following those previous studies have not studied both factors in the same cohort. The study observes that the past three decades have changed the manner in which cardiovascular risk factors are distributed in the population. The study also holds that secular trends do shape cardiovascular age related risk factors trajectories which might bring about inherent bias in a longitudinal analytical approach. This article is important for research because it investigates a newer area thereby giving fresh and interesting insights than traditional research. It opens the reader to a new way of observing how human health responds to changing trends. This research is phenomenal in that it recognizes the changing nature of the human society and goes on to investigate trends relate to human health.
Articles to use in the research
1. Hulman, A., Tabák, A. G., Nyari, T. A., Vistisen, D., Kivimäki, M., Brunner, E. J., & Witte, D. R. (2014). Effect of secular trends on age-related trajectories of cardiovascular risk factors: the Whitehall II longitudinal study 1985–2009. International journal of epidemiology, 43(3), 866-877.
2. Keyes, K. M., Nicholson, R., Kinley, J., Raposo, S., Stein, M. B., Goldner, E. M., & Sareen, J. (2014). Age, period, and cohort effects in psychological distress in the United States and Canada. American journal of epidemiology, 179(10), 1216-1227.
3. Heo, J., Jeon, S. Y., Oh, C. M., Hwang, J., Oh, J., & Cho, Y. (2017). The unrealized potential: cohort effects and age-period-cohort analysis. Epidemiology and health, 39, e2017056. doi:10.4178/epih.e2017056
4. Burns, A. R., Hussong, A. M., Solis, J. M., Curran, P. J., McGinley, J. S., Bauer, D. J., … & Zucker, R. A. (2017). Examining cohort effects in developmental trajectories of substance use. International journal of behavioral development, 41(5), 621-631.
5. Dodge, H. H., Zhu, J., Hughes, T. F., Snitz, B. E., Chang, C. H., Jacobsen, E. P., & Ganguli, M. (2016). Cohort effects in verbal memory function and practice effects: a population-based study. International psychogeriatrics, 29(1), 137-148.