Epidemiology is a scientific discipline that studies the causes and spread of infectious diseases in human populations. It aims to apply knowledge about infectious disease processes to fight against, restrict, and eventually eradicate diseases. The epidemiological method involves observation, description, comparison, statistical analysis, and diagnostic methods to characterize disease processes and evaluate prevention and control measures. Descriptive epidemiology collects data on disease incidence, risk factors, and impact to form hypotheses for prevention, while analytical epidemiology discovers causal relationships between diseases and risk factors. Experimental and mathematical modeling methods are also used.

1. Subject, Theory, Methods and Tasks of Epidemiology Prof. Dr. N. Ribarova, MD