We explain what the morbidity or morbidity of a disease is and the differences with mortality. Furthermore, morbidity rates.
What is morbidity?
In epidemiology and statistics, morbidity or morbidity is the proportion of individuals who contract a disease specific to a specific place and time frame. That is, it is the frequency of appearance of the disease with respect to the population: the higher the morbidity rates of a disease, the greater the number of people affected by it within the period taken into consideration.
This term comes from the Latin word morbiduswhich means “sick”, and expressed in percentage terms, It is one of the most useful indicators when planning public health strategies for example, when dealing with an epidemic. It should not be confused with mortality, a totally different statistical indicator.
Morbidity rates
Two different morbidity rates are commonly used, depending on the specific information needed:
- Prevalence rate. It refers to the total frequency of cases of the disease, both new and old, that occur at a given time (point prevalence) or over a period (period prevalence).
- Incidence rate. Instead, it refers to the speed with which the disease spreads, that is, to the rate of contagion or at least the registration of new infections during a given period.
In both cases, the calculation of the morbidity rate of a disease is always accompanied by information on the period studied and the geographical region affected.
Morbidity and mortality
If the morbidity rate refers to the rate at which a disease spreads in a given period and in a specific area, The mortality rate, on the other hand, refers to the number of deaths that occur in a certain area and period.
Said mortality can refer either to all deaths, regardless of their cause (general mortality rate), or to deaths resulting from a specific cause (particular mortality rate).
Thus, in epidemiology, it is common to study a disease from both its morbidity rate (number of registered cases) and mortality rate (number of deaths caused by it), in order to get an idea, from statistics, of how lethal it is. What the disease is and how easily it is spread.
References
- “Morbidity” on Wikipedia.
- “Morbidity” in the Language Dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy.
- “Mortality and morbidity” in Fundéu.
- “Morbidity” in Thanatopedia Áltima.
- “Health indicators” in the Directorate of Health Statistics and Information of the Government of Argentina.
