h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hi Hell

I used to work for a major medical researche funding body and was in charge of the Health Services Research and Epidemiology funding process. I was just wondering why you had chosen to use the word 'epidemiologic', because all the statistics contained in the work we funded referred to them as 'epidemiological' statistics.

Epidemiologic is a perfectly good word to use. It is a synonym of epidemiological, and also takes less time to type.

I'm not listening to you! I want to hear from a proper doctor!

As opposed to a microbiologic one?

Hi you s...

Good question. I don't think there is a deeper difference. Maybe I am merely more used to reading and using "Epidemiologic" instead of "Epidemiological". Maybe I am just too non-native-English to grasp such linguistic finesses. WOULD there be a difference in your opinion?

I was quite baffled in fact to notice that the reports I cite use "Epidemiological", as you mentioned. I immediatley tried out a Google search to see if there was a significant difference... Negative result. There seem to be many reputed organisations that use "Epidemiologic" as well...

So... I honestly don't know.

HELL

BTW I am not a proper doctor, I am just an ordinary physico-chemist. Before I changed to physical-chemistry (where I still have to deal with virae and cells from time to time) I was working at biochemistry with non proliferating HIV mutants (they get in but don't come out) - The diffusion behaviour of these mutants is currently being characterised by my colleagues, here in p-chem. Questions like: How fast do they infect a cell, how efficiently do they do that, where do they go, which transport mechanism do they use etc. etc...

So, basically, that's a bit of my HIV-related background. Just in case you wanted to know...

HELL