What terminology do epidemiologists use?

Epidemiologists use specific terminology to describe health-related events and their distributions. Key terms include "incidence" (the rate of new cases), "prevalence" (the total number of cases at a given time), "risk factor" (characteristics that increase the likelihood of disease), and "outbreak" (a sudden increase in cases). They also use "cohort," "case-control," and "cross-sectional" to describe study designs, as well as "confounding" to identify variables that may distort findings.