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Public Health & Epidemiology vocabulary · Measuring Health and Disease

Incidence

Meaning in public health & epidemiology, with examples

/ˈɪnsɪdəns/nounCore term

In public health & epidemiology, incidence means: The number of new cases of a disease in a population during a set period, usually given as a rate such as 25 new cases per 100,000 people per year.

In Turkish: insidans, yeni olgu hızı, görülme sıklığı

How it is used

Incidence tells you about risk and how fast a disease is spreading. You speak of the incidence of a disease or an incidence rate, and incidence rises, falls or peaks. Do not mix it up with prevalence, which counts all existing cases.

Example sentences

  1. The incidence of tuberculosis in the region fell by a third over ten years.

  2. We calculated incidence rates per 100,000 person-years.

Common collocations

  • incidence rate
  • cumulative incidence
  • annual incidence
  • high incidence
  • the incidence of a disease
  • prevalenceThe proportion of a population that has a disease or condition at a given time, counting both new and existing cases, often given as a percentage.
  • attack rateThe proportion of people at risk who become ill during an outbreak or another short, defined period, usually given as a percentage.
  • mortality rateThe number of deaths in a population during a period, divided by the size of that population, often given per 1,000 or 100,000 people per year.
  • epidemiologyThe study of how often diseases and other health problems occur in different groups of people, why they occur and how they can be controlled.

More terms: Measuring Health and Disease

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This page explains English vocabulary for learners. It is not medical advice.