Prevalence

Last revised by Frank Gaillard on 15 Jun 2023

Citation, DOI, disclosures and article data

Citation:

Moore C, Gaillard F, Bell D, Prevalence. Reference article, Radiopaedia.org (Accessed on 19 Apr 2024) https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-75681

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.53347/rID-75681

Permalink:

https://radiopaedia.org/articles/75681

rID:

75681

Article created:

5 Apr 2020, Candace Makeda Moore

Disclosures:

At the time the article was created Candace Makeda Moore had no recorded disclosures.

View Candace Makeda Moore's current disclosures

Last revised:

15 Jun 2023, Frank Gaillard ◉ ◈

Disclosures:

At the time the article was last revised Frank Gaillard had the following disclosures:

Biogen Australia Pty Ltd, Investigator-Initiated Research Grant for CAD software in multiple sclerosis: finished Oct 2021 (past)

These were assessed during peer review and were determined to not be relevant to the changes that were made.

View Frank Gaillard's current disclosures

Revisions:

3 times, by 3 contributors - see full revision history and disclosures

Tags:

statistics

Synonyms:

Prevalences
Point prevalence
Period prevalence
Lifetime prevalence

Prevalence is an epidemiological term referring to the proportion that reflects the total disease/condition burden in a population at a specific time and should not be confused with incidence.

There are different kinds of prevalence:

point prevalence is the amount of disease at one point in time
period prevalence is prevalence over a specific period of time
lifetime prevalence relates to events over the entire lifetime of people in a population

Underlying many statistical methods, including the application of Bayes theorem to clinical practice, is the assumption that changes in prevalence do not alter the sensitivity or specificity of a test. In practice, however, this does not seem to always hold true ².