Measures of disease frequency: prevalence and incidence.
To describe how often a disease or another health event occurs in a population, different measures of disease frequency can be used. The prevalence reflects the number of existing cases of a disease. In contrast to the prevalence, the incidence reflects the number of new cases of disease and can be reported as a risk or as an incidence rate. Prevalence and incidence are used for different purposes and to answer different research questions. In this article, we discuss the different measures of disease frequency and we explain when to apply which measure.
Noordzij
Marlies
M
ERA-EDTA Registry, Department of Medical Informatics, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. m.noordzij@amc.uva.nl
Dekker
Friedo W
FW
Zoccali
Carmine
C
Jager
Kitty J
KJ
D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D015995:Prevalence; D009626:Terminology as Topic