Talk:Prevalence

Short description
I edited the short description that The Eloquent Peasant had imported from from Wikidata (diff):

"Proportion of a population found to have a condition" → "Number of disease cases in a given population at a specific time"

I am creating this section for discussion about the article's short description, and to let other editor's know that I am not wedded to my particular short description. I have an open mind. :0)

Discussing the short description is of course related to how we define and explain "prevalence" in the article. Thus, I am hoping to also spark discussion of how to best define and explain prevalence in the article as a whole. (See the next section.) Thanks! - Mark D Worthen PsyD  (talk)   (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.)  20:04, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I updated the wikidata item to reflect your change. I think it looks good. Thanks.--The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 19:39, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Where's the "Upvote" button? ;^] ... Thank you very much for letting me know The Eloquent Peasant.  - Mark D Worthen PsyD   (talk)   (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.)  16:54, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Carefully defining and explaining prevalence
It is important to define and explain prevalence with precision and accuracy, because it is such an important concept in epidemiology specifically, but also in medicine, public health, social science, and more.

Here are some definitions from various medical dictionaries simply as a reference:


 * The total number of cases of a disease in a given population at a specific time.


 * the percentage of a population that is affected with a particular disease at a given time


 * (in epidemiology) the number of all new and old cases of a disease or occurrences of an event during a particular period. Prevalence is expressed as a ratio in which the number of events is the numerator and the population at risk is the denominator.


 * prevalence rate - the number of people in a population who have a disease at a given time; the numerator is the number of existing cases of disease at a specified time and the denominator is the total population. Time may be a point or a defined interval, and is traditionally the former if unspecified.
 * The number of cases of a disease existing in a given population at a specific period of time (period prevalence) or at a particular moment in time (point prevalence).
 * proportion of a population affected by a disease at a specific time (paraphrase)

Thanks! - Mark D Worthen PsyD  (talk)   (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.)  20:20, 6 April 2020 (UTC)