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Epidemiology

Epidemiology is the study of how often diseases occur in different groups of people and why.

A key feature is the measurement of the incidence of disease in relation to the population at risk. The population at risk is the group of people, healthy or sick, who would be counted as cases if they had the disease being studied. In concluding the 'risk', researchers calculate the level of increased risk according to their findings. Because many factors cannot be controlled in epidemiology studies, a risk level of 2.0 or lower is usually rejected as background noise and not a true increase in risk.

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