In epidemiology, the prevalence of a health-related state (typically disease, but also other things like smoking or seatbelt use) in a statistical population is defined as the total number of cases of the risk factor in the population at a given time, or the total number of cases in the population, divided by the number of individuals in the population. It is used as an estimate of how common a disease is within a population over a certain period of time. It helps physicians or other health professionals understand the probability of certain diagnoses and is routinely used by epidemiologists, health care providers, government agencies and insurers.
Prevalence may also be expressed in terms of subgroups of the population based on different denominator data.
Prevalence is contrasted with incidence which is a measure of new cases.
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