Microbiology Lecture 26 Microbiology , Lec 26.
Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and prevalence of communicable disease in populations.
There have been some amazing developments in our knowledge regarding infectious disease in the last 100 years. In the USA, public health measures and the development of antibiotics has greatly reduced the toll of infectious diseases, but worldwide infectious diseases are still a major cause of death. The ultimate goal of epidemiology is to keep disease at bay. In other words, they study the relationship between pathogens and their environments, like medical detectives. Here's an epidemiological detective story.