Incidence and Prevalence Project

# Overview
The purpose of the Incidence and Prevalence Project is to create the world's largest open source repository of published epidemiologic data.  WikiDoc intends to utilize this information to help patients understand how likely or unlikely they are to develop a specific disease/condition.  This project is intended for high school students, college students, medical students, doctoral students or higher to contribute their expertise.  This project will require you to gain a mastery of conducting academic research and calculating prevalence based on published data.  WikiDoc welcomes your  involvement in contributing to this project.

# Goals of the Incidence and Prevalence Project
- To assemble the world's largest open source repository of published prevalence data for rare diseases.
- To help patients understand and quantify the risk of developing a specific disease or condition.
- To create data to help build an artificial intelligence system for diagnosing diseases.

# Who can contribute to the Incidence and Prevalence Project?
The Incidence and Prevalence Project is intended for editors at an Assistant Editor-in-Chief level or higher.  It is specifically designed for students of all levels (high school, college, medical school, and doctoral programs) to help hone their quantitative research skills.

# How to get started
If you are interested in the Incidence and Prevalence Project, please email WikiDoc to obtain your portion to research of the Prevalence database.

# Next steps
1. A member of the WikiDoc team will send you a research assignment.  To begin, open your spreadsheet.
2. Identify a disease in column B.  Note: You will ignore any diseases in blue font.
3. Find the prevalence of the disease in the form of cases per 100,000 using reputable resources.  An example of a reputable source would be the World Health Organization, the Centers for Disease Control, the National Institutes of Health, the Clinton Foundation, etc.  When possible, find the prevalence of the disease in both developed countries (column C) and undeveloped/developing countries (column D).  Click here to determine if a country is developed versus developing.
- Prevalence is defined as the total number of cases of a disease in a given population at a given time.
- Scenario One: Sometimes the prevalence of a disease can be taken directly from a source and other times it may be given but may need to be converted into the form of cases per 100,000. Ex. 20 cases per 1,000 should be converted to 2,000 cases per 100,000 and entered as 2,000 in the appropriate column.
- Scenario Two: Sometimes the prevalence cannot be found for a particular disease. In this scenario the prevalence can be calculated by dividing the number of reported cases by the size of the population those cases were reported in. Ex. If 2,000 cases of a disease were reported in the U.S. the prevalence of the disease would be calculated by dividing those cases by 316,000,000 - the population of the U.S. 2,000/316,000,000 = 6.32911E-06. Multiply this result by 100,000 to achieve the statistic in the form of cases per 100,000. For this example 0.632911392 should be entered in column C. Here is the generalized formula:
- Perform all calculations in the excel sheet using the basic excel functions.  Please also provide a short and simple explanation of the calculation in column E.  This should include the number of cases and the population size used in the calculation.  Adapt the following explanation for this purpose: The prevalence was calculated by dividing the X number of reported cases by the Y population of country Z and multiplied by 100,000.
4. Enter the source(s) from which information was taken in columns F and G. Be sure that another researcher could independently verify your calculations using only the sources you provide in these columns and the explanation of the calculations you performed.
5. Save the spreadsheet as Prevalence DB_.xlsx replacing the Your Initials portion with your initials.  For example, Prevalence DB_KMF.xlsx.
6. Send the completed spreadsheet to Kristin (kfeeney@perfuse.org).
If you have any questions, please ask before you proceed. Kristin is available via telephone Monday-Friday 8AM-5PM EST at 617-632-7590. You may also email Kristin (kfeeney@perfuse.org) with any questions you have.

## Appendix A

## Developed Countries

## Developing Countries