Practical Exercises in Epidemiology I.

Epidemiology is a separate scientific discipline focused on the process of disease development and spreading, proposes measures to protect and improve health and controls the effectiveness of these measures. Its main objective is to contribute to the reduction of morbidity and mortality, to the protection and consolidation of health, as well as to the prolongation of life and in improving its quality in individuals and the population.

Although chronic non-infectious diseases have currently the dominant position in overall morbidity and mortality in developed countries, epidemics of infectious diseases are still present. Nowadays, epidemiology, but also other scientific disciplines (e.g. public health, infectology, travel medicine, etc.) face new threats. These are mainly infections caused by emerging or re-emerging pathogens, changes in the environment and lifestyle, climate change, increasing antibiotic resistance, vaccine refusal, poverty, etc.

The first part of the presented textbook provides information concerning epidemiological outbreak investigation, an overview of the classification of infectious diseases from the epidemiologist's point of view, and deals with the issue of intestinal diseases in more detail. A separate chapter is devoted to model situations (scenarios) that will contribute to the understanding of the issue and handling similar situations directly in practice.

The textbook is primarily intended for undergraduate master and bachelor students of Public Health study program, but certainly, there will also be a variety of information for students of General Medicine and students of other master and bachelor study programs of the Faculty of Medicine, PJŠU in Košice