Moreno-Altamirano L

Language: Spanish
References: 0
Page: 227-229
PDF size: 36.54 Kb.

ABSTRACT

Epidemiology cannot be understood without the cultural and historical contexts. In order to do so, it requires us to perceive its development´s internal dynamic as well as the setting in which it was built; its social and educational systems.
We put forward a panorama of the development and the contributions of Epidemiology. We poin out the moment when the need of medical schools to include preventive and social medicine in the training of future physicians was identified. We describe the transition from a sanitarium focus to the precise moment when Epidemiology was conceived as a tool to facilitate the statistical detail of the disease frequency, up to the moment it was considered as a theoretical and methodological discipline. This discipline focuses on the study of collective or population health problems as well as on health centers through scientific research methods, compilation techniques and data analysis. Moreover, we describe the turn in teaching surrounding such fundamental ideas. Furthermore, the type of research work being carried out within this period is also described. And, finally, we detail the Epidemiology´s contributions to the Faculty of Medicine, its research fields as well as the challenges they are currently facing.