Prevalence and Incidence
What is Prevalence?
Prevalence is a frequently used epidemiological measure of how commonly a disease or condition occurs in a population. Prevalence measures how much of some disease or condition there is in a population at a particular point in time. The prevalence is calculated by dividing the number of persons with the disease or condition at a particular time point by the number of individuals examined.
What is Incidence?
The incidence of a disease is another epidemiological measure. Incidence measures the rate of occurrence of new cases of a disease or condition. Incidence is calculated as the number of new cases of a disease or condition in a specified time period (usually a year) divided by the size of the population under consideration who are initially disease free.
Epidemiology: The study of disease as it occurs in populations, rather than in individuals.
c) Alcohol
Objectives : The objectives of alcohol module are to determine the prevalence of alcohol use, the pattern of alcohol consumption in the general population, and to explore the determinants for starting and continuing alcohol use.
Method : Population-based cross-sectional survey covering all genders aged 13 years and above using pre-design self administered questionnaire.
Result : The response rate for this module was 52.5%. The prevalence of ever consume alcohol was 16.2% while current drinker was 7.4% and 29.1% of ever consume alcohol had stopped drinking for the past one year. For current drinker the prevalence was higher in Sarawak state (15.0%), in urban area (8.9%), among males (11.8%), Chinese (23.8%), age group between 70 – 74 years old (10.4%), Christians (25.6%), senior officer / manager (24.8%), and those married (7.9%). The respondents with tertiary level of education reported the highest prevalence (13.7%). Generally it was noted that the prevalence was highest among those who earned RM 5000 and above per month with a prevalence of 16.3% increased with household income. Similar trend was observed when the comparison was based on the personnel income. The reported mean age of starting to drink alcohol in Malaysia was 20.98 years old. Peer influenced was the main reason for initiation (53.4%) as well as continuing consumption of alcohol (37.1%). A group consists of Beer, Stout, Lager, Ale, Shandy was the most being consumed by the respondents with a prevalence of (93.3%) followed by a group of Red, White, Rose Wine/Champagne/Sherry/Vermouth And Tuak (55.8%) then by group of Whisky, Rum, Toddy ( 29.9% ). Prevalence of binge drinker was 30.6%. It was more common in rural (32.7%) and higher among males (31.8%). Overall, 46.0% of the respondents claimed that they had attempted to stop drinking with an average of 3.4 quit attempts. Among the successful quitters, 51.2% cited negative health effects as the main reason for quitting.
http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/specialarticles/jcn_9_188.pdf
http://www.nih.gov.my/NHMS/abstracts_14.html
Tolerence
Tolerance means that more of a drug is required to achieve an effect. Tolerance to alcohol can be demonstrated in two ways. First, the effect of a given dose of alcohol decreases as tolerance develops. Second, a greater dose of alcohol is required to produce a given effect. People may become tolerant to the desired effects of alcohol as well as to its aversive (unpleasant) effects. Tolerance can develop after a period of chronic alcohol exposure (protracted tolerance) or after a single dose (acute tolerance). It also can be expressed as strong individual and animal strain differences in initial sensitivity to alcohol (innate tolerance).
The development of tolerance allows and encourages increased intake of alcohol because more of the drug is required to achieve the same effect. There are several consequences of tolerance. The first is that higher blood levels of alcohol, maintained for longer periods of time, result in increased damage to many organ systems. Particularly vulnerable are the stomach, where bleeding occurs, and the liver, where fat deposition and cirrhosis occur. In addition, chronic alcohol consumption results in increased alcohol metabolism, as explained below. The metabolism of alcohol upsets the energy balance of the cell and results in altered metabolism of hormones and other compounds by the liver.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0847/is_n2_v14/ai_9858901
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