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HLTH 503 Final Exam with Answers

1. True or False? Molecular epidemiology applies the techniques of molecular biology to epidemiologic studies.
2. Which of the following activities characterizes an epidemiologic approach (as opposed to a clinical approach)?
3. True or False? Most of the time, epidemiologic researchers confront a problem that has a clear etiologic basis.
4. True or False? John Cassel argued that the agent, host, and environment triad provided an adequate explanation for chronic diseases of non-infectious origin.
5. True or False? The existence of a dose-response relationship, that is, an increase in disease risk with an increase in the amount of exposure, does not support the view that an association is a causal one.
6. True or False? An important risk factor for the population is always important for the individual.
7. True or False? High firearm death rates and homicide rates are indicators of adverse conditions within the community.
8. True or False? Calculation of the standardized mortality ratio is an example of the direct method of age adjustment.
9. True or False? Certain diseases can occur more than once in the same individual during a stated period of time. Repeated cases of the disease have no effect upon incidence rates.
10. The major disadvantage of crude rates is that:
11. Which of the following terms is expressed as a ratio (as distinguished from a proportion)?
12. True or False? Developmental problems such as congenital birth defects occur primarily late in life.
13. Descriptive epidemiology characterizes the amount and distribution of disease within a population and enables the researcher to:
14. Which of the following statements most accurately expresses the breeder hypothesis for schizophrenia?
15. True or False? Nativity refers to place of origin of an individual.
16. What data source has the advantage of being almost nearly complete in the U.S.?
17. The Vital Statistics Registration System in the U.S. collects data on all vital events including:
18. Before utilizing data for an epidemiologic study, the researcher must first consider the:
19. In case-control studies, the odds ratio is used as an estimate of the relative risk. In order for this approximation to be reasonable, some conditions must be met. Which of the following conditions is not necessary in order to use the odds ratio to estimate the relative risk?
20. Ecologic studies:
21. True or False? An ecologic comparison study is sometimes called a cross-sectional ecologic study.
22. True or False? Cohort studies preserve the temporality of cause (exposure) happening before the effect (disease)
23. As an epidemiologist you are going to investigate the effect of a drug suspected of causing malformations in newborn infants when the drug in question is taken by pregnant women during the course of their pregnancies. As your sample you will use the next 200 single births occurring in a given hospital. For each birth a medication history will be taken from the new mother and from her doctor; in addition, you will review medical records to verify use of the drug. [N.B.: These mothers are considered to have been followed prospectively during the entire course of their pregnancies, because a complete and accurate record of drug use was maintained during pregnancy.
24. Failing to account for age cohort effects in smoking prevalence may:
25. Identify which of the following six types of study designs most appropriately characterizes the situation described below. The physical examination records of the incoming freshmen class of 1935 at the University of Minnesota are examined in 1980 to see whether their recorded height and weight at the time of admission to the university are related to their chance of developing coronary heart disease by 1981.
26. True or False? In community intervention studies, it is important for the investigator to evaluate whether a program has achieved its intended results before assuming the benefits of the intervention.
27. Identify which of the following six types of study designs most appropriately characterizes the situation described below. To test the efficacy of a health education program in reducing the risk of foodborne and waterborne diseases, the residents of two Peruvian villages were given an intensive health education program. At the end of two years, the incidence rates of important water-borne and food-borne diseases in these villages were compared with those in two similar control villages without any education program.
28. If it is accepted that an observed association is a causal one, an estimate of the impact that a successful preventive program might have can be derived from:
29. When assessing a positive relationship between alcohol consumption and oral cancer using a case-control study, increasing the sample size of the study will result in which of the following?
30. The death rate per 100,000 for lung cancer is 7 among non-smokers and 71 among smokers. The death rate per 100,000 for coronary thrombosis is 422 among non-smokers and 599 among smokers. The prevalence of smoking in the population is 55%. The relative risk of dying for a smoker compared to a non-smoker is: [Refer to the chapter titled “Study Designs: Cohort Studies”
31. Which of the following is not a method for controlling the effects of confounding in epidemiologic studies?
32. You are investigating the role of physical activity in heart disease and suggest that physical activity protects against having a heart attack. While presenting these data to your colleagues, someone asks if you have thought about confounders such as factor X. This factor X could have confounded your interpretation of the data if it:
33. The purpose of a double-blind study is to:
34. A test that determines whether disease is actually present is a:
35. A screening examination was performed on 250 persons for Factor X, which is found in disease Y. A definitive diagnosis for disease Y among the 250 persons had been obtained previously. The results are charted below:
36. A new screening test for Lyme disease is developed for use in the general population. The sensitivity and specificity of the new test are 60% and 70%, respectively. Three hundred people are screened at a clinic during the first year the new test is implemented. Assume the true prevalence of Lyme disease among clinic attendees is 10%.
37. The degree of agreement among several trained experts refers to:
38. True or False? When an individual comes into contact with a piece of clothing that subsequently infects him or her that piece of clothing is a fomite and the infection is direct.
39. An outbreak of salmonellosis occurred after an epidemiology department luncheon, which was attended by 485 faculty and staff. Assume everyone ate the same food items. Sixty-five people had fever and diarrhea, five of these people were severely affected. Subsequent laboratory tests on everyone who attended the luncheon revealed an additional 72 cases. The ratio of severe cases to other clinically apparent cases was:
40. Host factors in the causation of disease include:
41. True or False? Diseases that have only human reservoirs and are transmitted from person to person are the zoonoses.
42. The healthy worker effect refers to the observation that:
43. Exposure to electric and magnetic fields has been linked to:
44. The lowest dose at which a particular response may occur:
45. Selye’s concept of the general adaptation syndrome did not include:
46. Which of the following statements describes a stressful life event?
47. Personal behavior and lifestyle factors in health do not include:
48. Career roles for epidemiologist include:
49. Education in epidemiology can be obtained via special summer session programs and online programs.
50. The field of epidemiology is restricted to only 30 specializations.