Three of the seven uses of epidemiology include studying the history of the health of populations, diagnosing the health of a community, and examining the working of health services (Friis & Sellers, 2020, p. 86). Epidemiology examines vital statistics, population demographics, health indicators, and morbidity and mortality data in a given population over time (Friis & Sellers, 2020, p. 89); dissecting this information by age, sex, cause of death, social determinants, health-related outcome variables etc., within a given time frame creates an overall picture of the health status of a population, the challenges it faces, and opportunities to improve its health status. Performing this activity for several past and current time frames within the same population provides a historical reference with which to identify trends in public health; in industrialized nations for example, chronic disease now surpasses infectious disease in causing morbidity and mortality (Friis & Sellers, 2020, p. 89).
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