Epidemiology of Chronic and Communicable Diseases Research groups

Strategic Objectives

  • To generate scientific knowledge that is directly relevant to controlling chronic diseases, which are the main causes of loss of health and the use of Health Services in Spain; also to generate scientific knowledge about these communicable diseases that can act as a base on which to support the actions carried out by the Health Authorities.
  • To promote cooperative research among different groups, encouraging collaboration between researchers and boosting the internationalisation of their activities, and to develop strategies to improve the researchers’ scientific capacities.
  • To assess the effectiveness and efficiency of the interventions carried out with a Public Health services perspective.
  • To foster the transfer of knowledge to the Health Service to help design and implement health policies.

Specific Objectives

Epidemiology and surveillance of communicable diseases:

  • Survey of seroprevalence in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.
  • Study of the effectiveness of the flu vaccine (cycEVA).
  • Tuberculosis and social inequality in Gipuzkoa in the period 2003-2009.
  • Study of the high incidence of cases of sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.

Epidemiology and control of chronic diseases:

  • Strategy integrated into the municipal health area to promote physical exercise in fragile elderly people. Tipi-tapa.
  • Study of the distribution of COPD and asthma in Gipuzkoa.
  • Escape (European Study of Cohorts for Air Pollution Effects).
  • Assessment of the equity, variability and results between centres and Autonomous Communities in Spain.
  • Preparation of cancer profiles in different regions.
  • Socio-economic inequalities in the risk of cancer.
  • Assessment of the health and cost benefits at a population level of the early breast cancer detection programme in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country.
  • MCC-SPAIN Population multi-case control study, including tumours with a high incidence in Spain.
  • Contaminants and cancer: biomarkers of exposure, genetic susceptibility and early damage markers.
  • Epidemiology of cardiovascular diseases. Linked with the EPIC-Heart and EPIC-CVD projects. Study of the association between alcohol consumption, meat/protein consumption, fish/omega-3 consumption and stroke in the Spanish cohort of the EPIC study.
  • Surveillance of accidents in people over the age of 64 and resident in the Autonomous Community of the Basque Country through a lookout network.
  • Ageing and neurodegenerative diseases.
  • Social networks for elderly people: identification, characterisation and analysis of their relationship with lifestyle habits related to health.

Nutritional epidemiology:

  • Alcohol consumption and genetic susceptibility: Case-control study.
  • Development of EPic-soft: diet assessment methodology.

Main lines of research

  • Epidemiology and surveillance of infectious and communicable diseases:
    • Flu.
    • Vaccine-preventable diseases caused by viruses (measles, rubella and mumps) or bacteria (whooping cough, pneumococcal disease or meningococcal disease).
    • Epidemic outbreaks
    • Tuberculosis.
  • Epidemiology and Control of Chronic Diseases:
    • Environmental and genetic determining factors of cancer, cardiovascular diseases and diabetes.
    • Other chronic disorders of high social impact.
    • Eating habits and their effect on health.
    • Epidemiology and prevention of accidental injuries.
    • Assessment of quality of care and quality of life.
    • Inequalities in health according to social class, gender, geographical location and environment.
    • Epidemiology of neurodegenerative diseases. Parkinson’s Disease and Alzheimer’s Disease and other cognitive disorders.
    • Genetic-environmental interaction in chronic diseases.
  • Nutritional epidemiology:
    • Diet and chronic diseases: cancer, cardiovascular or diabetes.
    • Research in methodology to assess diet: new instruments.
    • Assessment of diet in epidemiological case-control studies and cohorts.
Science field

Life & Medical Sciences

Institution
Biogipuzkoa
RIS3 Priorities
  • Biosciences & Health
Main researcher
Pilar Amiano Etxezarreta
Address
Biodonostia HRI Pº Dr. Beguiristain s/n 20014 Donostia – San Sebastián Gipuzkoa
How to arrive
Main research lines
  • Epidemiology and surveillance of infectious and communicable disease
  • Epidemiology and Control of Chronic Diseases
  • Nutritional epidemiology