Eduardo J Simoes University of Missouri

While all explanations are somewhat correct they freely make use concepts that are related but
not the same. Prevalence and risk are being used interchangeably, but they are actually different
epidemiologically and using them in the same way may cause confusion in some situations.
Risk is the probability of occurrence of a new event (say health outcome) over a period of time
among those who are at risk for event occurrence (say developing/acquiring health outcome) at
the beginning of the follow up period. Risk is usually expressed as a value between 0 and 1, as
all probabilities. It is often estimated through follow-up or Cohort studies of two groups of
subjects/individuals (with or without some characteristics/attribute usually called exposed and
unexposed groups). So, the Risk estimates the average probability of occurrence of an outcome
over a specified period of time among individuals at risk for having the outcome at the beginning
of the follow-up period.
Prevalence is the number or proportion of subjects/individuals with some attribute (can als be the
level of attribute/characteristics) or outcome (event) in a point in time or period of time.
Prevalence is usually expressed as a proportion (0 to 1 as probabilities; or as percentages). It is
usually derived from cross-sectional studies or a random sample from a population of
subjects/individuals in a point in time (or period of time) no need to specify a follow up period.
Therefore, Prevalence Ratio (erroneously called Prevalence Rate Ratio- because prevalence is
not a rate) indicates how large is the prevalence of an event/outcome in one group of
subjects/individuals (with characteristics/attribute) relative to another group (without the
characteristics/attributes).
While, the ratio of the risks (Risk Ratio or Cumulative Incidence Ratio) indicates how more or less
likely one a group of individuals/subjects with attribute/characteristics (exposure) is to
develop/acquire a health outcome or conditions over the follow up period relative to the other
group of unexposed.
The mathematic of the Odds Ratio presented are also correct, but colleagues are freely throwing
the concepts of Prevalence Odds Ratio and Risk Odds Ratio as interchangeable, while they are
not for the reasons discussed above. The Exposure Odds Ratio of derived from Case-Control
Studies or a Risk Odds Ratio derived from a Cohort study are only approximated estimates of
RisK Ratio (or Relative Risk). The Prevalence Odds Ratio is not an approximate measure of the
Risk Ratio - it is a paremter on its own that can be used in cross-sectional studies as a measure
of the association between exposure/factors and the outcome of interest, without any need to
mention Risk ratio.
In any circusntance in which an Odds Ratio is being estimated, it is important to know which
fundamental measure is being estimated indirectly by the Odds Ratio: Risk ratio or Prevalence
Ratio.
Finally, in exceptional circunstances the Prevalence may estimate another epidemiological
measure the Incidence Rate (or incidence density), a true rate. In this situation the Prevalence
Ratio is actually estimating the Incidence Rate Ratio

Fungsi eksponensial adalah salah satu fungsi yang paling penting dalam matematika.
Biasanya, fungsi ini ditulis dengan notasi exp(x) atau ex, dimana e adalah basis logaritma
natural yang kira-kira sama dengan 2.71828183.