What is the Difference Between Prevalence and Incidence?
🆚 Go to Comparative Table 🆚Prevalence and incidence are both epidemiological measures that provide information about the occurrence of diseases or health outcomes in a population. However, they differ in the way they measure the frequency of these conditions:
- Prevalence is the proportion of a population with a specific characteristic, such as a disease, at a given time, regardless of when they first developed the characteristic. Prevalence can be measured in two ways:
- Point prevalence: The proportion of a population that has the characteristic at a specific point in time.
- Period prevalence: The proportion of a population that has the characteristic at any point during a given time period, such as "past 12 months".
- Incidence is a measure of the number of new cases of a characteristic that develop in a population during a specified time period. Incidence is often reported for infectious diseases to help identify causes and preventions.
The main differences between prevalence and incidence are:
- Prevalence includes all cases, both new and pre-existing, in the population at the specified time, whereas incidence is limited to new cases only.
- Prevalence is a useful measure of the burden of disease, while incidence helps to identify causes and preventions.
Understanding both prevalence and incidence is essential for public health planning, resource allocation, and evaluating the impact of interventions.
On this pageWhat is the Difference Between Prevalence and Incidence? Comparative Table: Prevalence vs Incidence
Comparative Table: Prevalence vs Incidence
The main difference between prevalence and incidence lies in the time frame and the types of cases they measure. Here is a table illustrating the differences between the two:
Prevalence | Incidence |
---|---|
Refers to the total number of cases of a disease in a specific population at a particular time point or during a given period. | Measures the number of new cases of a disease in a specific population over a particular period of time. |
Includes both new and pre-existing cases of a disease. | Measures new cases only. |
Helps to understand the overall impact of a disease in a population. | Helps to identify causes and prevent future occurrences of a disease. |
Can be measured using point prevalence, period prevalence, or lifetime prevalence. | Can be measured using incidence proportion or incidence rate. |
Read more:
- Incident vs Incidence
- Morbidity vs Mortality
- Prevention vs Cure
- Endemic vs Epidemic
- Pandemic vs Epidemic
- Epidemic vs Outbreak
- Incident vs Event
- Diagnosis vs Prognosis
- Incident vs Accident
- Inoculation vs Incubation
- Disease vs Illness
- Infection vs Disease
- Death Rate vs Mortality Rate
- Preventive vs Preventative
- Contagious Disease vs Infectious Disease
- Symptom vs Syndrome
- Asymptomatic vs Presymptomatic
- Syndrome vs Disease
- Prejudice vs Discrimination