Epi 10

When thinking about diseases and Epidemiology some times I underestimate the amount of factors that go into the mortality rates.  Before this class, I just thought that mortality rates were just the total number of people who died from a certain cause.  I did not take into account any of the other factors that could easily influence the rates significantly.  After going over the power point from last class, I thought it was an interesting concept to start comparing mortalities among different populations.  Age is an important factor when thinking about mortality rates because older people usually have a less healthy immune system causing them to not be able to fight off diseases as easily as younger people.  Another factor that influences mortality rates is race.  There are some diseases that are more prevalent in minority ethnic groups, and this could be because of several different reasons.  Gender is yet again another important factor for Epidemiologists to consider when looking at mortality rates because some diseases are overwhelmingly more prevalent in one gender compared to the other.  Also, another factor that can cause an influence on the rate that I used to highly over look is the community’s economic status.  For an example, if an outbreak occurs in a low income or poverty community than the death rate from the disease maybe much higher.  There are many reasons why this can take place such as lack of health insurance or lack of knowledge of signs and symptoms.  I think that this is not only interesting, but also overlooked information that can highly impact the rates.