title: Measures of disease frequency: prevalence and incidence.
abstract: 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.
authors.affiliation: ERA-EDTA Registry, Department of Medical Informatics, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands. m.noordzij@amc.uva.nl
authors.forename: Marlies
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Noordzij
authors.forename: Friedo W
authors.initials: FW
authors.lastname: Dekker
authors.forename: Carmine
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zoccali
authors.forename: Kitty J
authors.initials: KJ
authors.lastname: Jager
mesh_terms: D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D004812:Epidemiologic Methods; D006801:Humans; D015994:Incidence; D015995:Prevalence; D009626:Terminology as Topic