epidemiology

noun ep·i·de·mi·ol·o·gy \ ˌe-pə-ˌdē-mē-ˈä-lə-jē , -ˌde-mē- \

|Updated on: 28 May 2018

Definition of epidemiology

1 : a branch of medical science that deals with the incidence, distribution, and control of disease in a population

2 : the sum of the factors controlling the presence or absence of a disease or pathogen

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epidemiological

play \ˌe-pə-ˌdē-mē-ə-ˈlä-ji-kəl, -ˌde-mē-\ or less commonly epidemiologic play \ˌe-pə-ˌdē-mē-ə-ˈlä-jik, -ˌde-mē-\ adjective

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epidemiologically

play \ˌe-pə-ˌdē-mē-ə-ˈlä-ji-k(ə-)lē, -ˌde-mē-\ adverb

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epidemiologist

play \ˌe-pə-ˌdē-mē-ˈä-lə-jist, -ˌde-mē-\ noun

See epidemiology defined for English-language learners

See epidemiology defined for kids

Recent Examples of epidemiology from the Web

Michael Siegel, a preventive-medicine physician, worked in epidemiology at the C.D.C. before joining Boston University’s School of Public Health.

— jia tolentino, The New Yorker, "The Promise of Vaping and the Rise of Juul," 7 May 2018
Deborah Barnes, a professor in the UCSF departments of psychiatry, epidemiology and biostatistics, said there was no difference between combat blast survivors who had served in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the other trauma victims.

— peter fimrite, San Francisco Chronicle, "Even milder concussions double dementia risk, UCSF study finds," 7 May 2018
Bednarz works to prevent the spread of diseases as an epidemiology disease investigator with the Maricopa County Department of Public Health.

— derek hall, azcentral, "March For Science Phoenix: Hundreds of science supporters rally in Margaret T. Hance Park," 15 Apr. 2018
Marion County also already has a high prevalence of asthma, with 1 in 5 children and 1 in 10 adults suffering from the disease, according to Joe Gibson, director of epidemiology at the Marion County Department of Public Health.

— emily hopkins, Indianapolis Star, "This is why Hoosiers may soon have to worry about diseases such as malaria and Zika," 6 Apr. 2018
Becca Levy, a Yale University epidemiology professor, has found that people who held negative age beliefs earlier in life died 7.5 years earlier than those with more positive perceptions.

— stacey burling, Philly.com, "Old and ageist: Why so many older people have prejudices about their peers - and themselves," 3 Apr. 2018
The study and gathering of information by the epidemiology staff.

— melissa reinert, Cincinnati.com, "5 ways to use the NKY Health Department," 21 Mar. 2018
Majumder is a computational epidemiology research fellow at HealthMap, a 12-year-old disease detection project run by researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital.

— helen branswell, STAT, "When towns lose their newspapers, disease detectives are left flying blind," 20 Mar. 2018
Janet Rosenbaum, an assistant professor of epidemiology at the School of Public Health at the State University of New York Downstate in Brooklyn, examined the difference in homicide rates between Israel and the United States.

— ruth eglash, Washington Post, "Why school shootings are so rare in Israel, where guns are such a common sight," 22 Feb. 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'epidemiology.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

Origin and Etymology of epidemiology

borrowed from French, Spanish, or New Latin; French épidémiologie, borrowed from Spanish epidemiología, borrowed from New Latin epidēmiologia, from Medieval Latin epidēmia "disease affecting a large number of individuals, epidemic" + New Latin -o- -o- + -logia -logy — more at ¹epidemic

Note: New Latin epidēmiologia was used in the title of a treatise by the Calabrian physician Quinto Tiberio Angelerio (1532-1617), Epidemiologia, sive Tractatus de peste (Madrid, 1598), a second edition of his earlier work Ectypa pestilentis status Algheriae Sardiniae (Cagliari, 1588), detailing methods to cope with a plague outbreak in Alghero, Sardinia, in 1582-83. The Latin word was revived by the Spanish physician Joaquín de Villalba (1752-1807) in his Epidemiología española (Madrid, 1802), a history of epidemics in Spain that was widely disseminated in Europe.

NEW! Time Traveler

First Known Use: 1850

in the meaning defined at sense 1

See Words from the same year