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Review
. 2019 Jan;52(1):14-20.
doi: 10.3961/jpmph.18.250. Epub 2019 Jan 23.

Health Indicators Related to Disease, Death, and Reproduction

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Review

Health Indicators Related to Disease, Death, and Reproduction

Jeoungbin Choi et al. J Prev Med Public Health. 2019 Jan.

Abstract

One of the primary goals of epidemiology is to quantify various aspects of a population's health, illness, and death status and the determinants (or risk factors) thereof by calculating health indicators that measure the magnitudes of various conditions. There has been some confusion regarding health indicators, with discrepancies in usage among organizations such as the World Health Organization the, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and the CDC of other countries, and the usage of the relevant terminology may vary across papers. Therefore, in this review, we would like to propose appropriate terminological definitions for health indicators based on the most commonly used meanings and/or the terms used by official agencies, in order to bring clarity to this area of confusion. We have used appropriate examples to make each health indicator easy for the reader to understand. We have included practical exercises for some health indicators to help readers understand the underlying concepts.

Keywords: Concept; Epidemiology; Health indicators; Terminology.

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Conflict of interest statement

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors have no conflicts of interest associated with the material presented in this paper.

Figures

Figure. 1.
Figure. 1.
The 10 major causes of death in Korea, 2016 with proportionate mortality values (%) [8].

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