The idea of morbidity comes from the English word morbidity , a variant of morbidity that derives from morbid (a term that can be translated as “morbid” ). The concept refers to the proportion of individuals who contract a disease at a given time and place .
Morbidity, therefore, is linked to the number of sick people in a certain place and time. Thanks to this type of statistics, specialists can analyze the emergence of an illness that affects many subjects, know how it regresses or evolves, and study the possible treatments to implement.
It is common for the analysis of morbidity to be oriented towards the incidence of the disease : that is, the frequency with which new cases are added in a specific region and period. This morbidity rate focuses on the speed at which the disease develops, from the beginning of the investigation onwards.
The notion of morbidity can also be linked to prevalence , which is the frequency of all cases, both those that occurred in the past and those that occur every second. We speak of point prevalence to group cases that occur at a particular moment in time , while period prevalence covers a broader, although also limited, portion of time.
The frequency must be specified in a high degree of detail, since science does not accept approximate or vague data if it can, instead, use the most precise ones. One minute, in this context, can make a significant difference in the outcome of a morbidity study.
Many times there is confusion between morbidity and mortality , which is why it is important to learn to differentiate both words. Morbidity, as we have already seen, is the number of subjects who become ill in a given population and time. Mortality , on the other hand, refers to the number of deaths in a given population and time. Morbidity, in this way, is related to those who acquire a disease; mortality, to those who die.
A certain disorder, in short, can have high morbidity and low mortality, or vice versa (low morbidity and high mortality). This relationship will depend on the number of patients and how many of those patients die.
There is, on the other hand, the concept of global burden of disease , which is abbreviated by the acronym CMM . This is a scientific project that aims to put into figures the magnitude of health loss due to certain injuries, risk factors and diseases, among other disorders that can be studied taking into account several very specific criteria , such as the geographical location, age, sex and the time in which they occur.
The World Health Organization is responsible for assessing the global burden of disease. The image obtained after this study covers the situation of the entire world in reference to its health and the ills that afflict it. Far from being a passive statistic, which is simply used to collect data to capture it in a graph, it is one of the fundamental tools to implement different action plans.
The alternative would be a world in which doctors took to the streets to vaccinate and assist the sick, thinking only of solving their specific problems; Morbidity studies, on the other hand, are carried out with a broader, future vision , with the intention of eradicating disorders or at least reducing their incidence to the minimum possible. The goal is very big, and that is why it requires a lot of time and effort.