Morbidity is a characteristic variable of communities of living beings and refers to the group of individuals, within the same population, who acquire diseases (or a specific disease) in a given period of time. Morbidity serves to show the behavior of diseases and health problems in the population.
The word morbidity comes from the Latin morbus, i, which means so much physical illness like disease of the spirit, passion.
Morbidity is generally studied according to 4 basic indicators:
- Incidence: It is the number of new cases of the disease that started in the same place and period. Shows the intensity with which a disease occurs in a population, measuring the frequency or probability of occurrence of new cases of disease in the population. High incidence means a high collective risk of becoming ill;
- Prevalence: It indicates the quality of what prevails, implies happening and remaining existing at a considered moment. It is the total number of cases of a disease observed in a specific place and period;
- Attack Rate: It is the coefficient or rate of incidence of a given disease for a group of people exposed to the same risk, limited to a well-defined area, very useful for investigating and analyzing outbreaks of disease or health problems in places closed;
- Proportional distribution: It indicates the total number of cases or deaths that occurred for a given cause, how many of them are distributed, for example, between men and women, how many occur in different age groups. Proportional distribution does not measure the risk of falling ill or dying (as in the case of coefficients), indicating only how the cases are distributed among the affected people, by age groups, sex, location and others variables.
morbidity coefficient
It consists of the relationship between the number of cases of a disease and the population exposed to illness, broken down into incidence coefficient and prevalence coefficient. It is widely used with the objective of controlling diseases or injuries, as well as for analysis studies of the cause/effect type.
See also:meaning of morbidity and mortality.
Morbidity and Mortality
Morbidity or morbidity, as said, consists of the rate of individuals with a certain disease within a specific group, from a certain period of analysis.
Mortality refers to everything that is mortal. It usually refers to the number of people who died in a certain place, taking into account a certain period of time (mortality rate).
See also:meaning of the mortality rate and comorbidity.