Define and Describe the Different Types of Risk Factors

Variable associated with an increased risk of disease or infection

This commodity needs attention from an expert in medicine. The specific problem is: defining, “determinant,” a complicated, poorly harmonized concept in medicine. Some sources use the term loosely while others use it as a technical term.. WikiProject Medicine may be able to help recruit an expert. (July 2019)

In epidemiology, a
risk factor
or
determinant
is a variable associated with an increased take a chance of disease or infection.<sup>[1]

: 38</sup>

Due to a lack of harmonization across disciplines,
determinant, in its more widely accepted scientific meaning, is often used as a synonym. The main deviation lies in the realm of practice: medicine (clinical do) versus public health. As an instance from clinical exercise, depression ingestion of dietary sources of vitamin C is a known gamble gene for developing scurvy. Specific to public health policy, a determinant is a wellness risk that is general, abstract, related to inequalities, and difficult for an private to control.^[2]
[3]
[4]
For instance, poverty is known to be a determinant of an individual’s standard of health.

Correlation vs causation

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Risk factors or determinants are correlational and non necessarily causal, considering correlation does not testify causation. For example, existence young cannot be said to cause measles, just young people have a higher rate of measles considering they are less likely to have adult amnesty during a previous epidemic. Statistical methods are frequently used to assess the strength of an association and to provide causal show, for example in the study of the link between smoking and lung cancer. Statistical assay forth with the biological sciences tin plant that risk factors are causal. Some prefer the term take a chance gene to hateful causal determinants of increased rates of affliction, and for unproven links to exist called possible risks, associations, etc.^{[
citation needed
]}

When done thoughtfully and based on research, identification of risk factors can be a strategy for medical screening.^[5]

Terms of description

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Mainly taken from risk factors for chest cancer, adventure factors tin be described in terms of, for example:

• Relative adventure, such as “A adult female is more than 100 times more probable to develop breast cancer in her 60s than in her 20s.”^[half-dozen]
• Fraction of incidences occurring in the grouping having the property of or being exposed to the hazard factor, such as “99% of breast cancer cases are diagnosed in women.”^[7]
• Increase in incidence in the exposed group, such equally “each daily alcoholic drinkable increases the incidence of breast cancer past xi cases per k women.”^[8]
• Gamble ratio, such every bit “an increase in both total and invasive breast cancers in women randomized to receive estrogen and progestin for an average of 5 years, with a hazard ratio of one.24 compared to controls.”^[9]

Example

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At a wedding, 74 people ate the chicken and 22 of them were sick, while of the 35 people who had the fish or vegetarian repast but 2 were ill. Did the chicken brand the people sick?

$$


R
i
s
k
=



number of persons experiencing consequence (food poisoning)


number of persons exposed to take chances cistron (food)





{\displaystyle Chance={\frac {\mbox{number of persons experiencing event (food poisoning)}}{\mbox{number of persons exposed to risk gene (food)}}}}

^[ten]

So the chicken eaters’ risk = 22/74 = 0.297
And non-chicken eaters’ risk = 2/35 = 0.057.

Those who ate the chicken had a risk over five times as high equally those who did not, that is, a relative risk of more than than five. This suggests that eating chicken was the crusade of the disease, simply this is
not
proof.

This instance of a risk factor is described in terms of the relative risk it confers, which is evaluated by comparing the risk of those exposed to the potential risk cistron to those not exposed.

General determinants

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The probability of an outcome normally depends on an coaction between multiple associated variables. When performing epidemiological studies to evaluate one or more than determinants for a specific upshot, the other determinants may act equally confounding factors, and need to be controlled for, eastward.g. past stratification. The potentially misreckoning determinants varies with what issue is studied, but the following general confounders are common to nearly epidemiological associations, and are the determinants most unremarkably controlled for in epidemiological studies:^{[
citation needed
]}

• Historic period (0 to one.5 years for infants, ane.5 to 6 years for young children, etc.)
• Sex or gender (Male or female)<sup>[xi]
  
  : 20</sup>
  
• Ethnicity (Based on race)<sup>[xi]
  
  : 21</sup>
  

Other less unremarkably adjusted for possible confounders include:

• Social condition/income
  <sup>[ane]
  
  : 39</sup>
  
• Geographic location
• Genetic predisposition
• Gender identity
• Occupation
• Overwork^[12]
• Sexual orientation
• Level of chronic stress
• Diet
• Level of physical exercise
• Alcohol consumption and tobacco smoking
• Other social determinants of wellness

Gamble marker

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A
risk marker
is a variable that is quantitatively associated with a disease or other consequence, only direct alteration of the chance marker does not necessarily alter the gamble of the effect. For instance, driving-while-intoxicated (DWI) history is a risk marker for pilots as epidemiologic studies indicate that pilots with a DWI history are significantly more likely than their counterparts without a DWI history to be involved in aviation crashes.^[13]

History

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The term “risk gene” was coined past one-time Framingham Heart Study Director, Dr. William B. Kannel in a 1961 article in
Register of Internal Medicine.^[14]

See too

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• Protective gene
• Loftier-risk people
• Health risk cess

References

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Farther reading

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• Case, S.P. and Haines, G.R. (2009) Understanding Youth Offending: Risk Factor Research, Policy and Practice. Cullompton: Willan. https://spider web.archive.org/web/20100905042319/http://www.willanpublishing.co.u.k./cgi-bin/indexer?production=9781843923411