dictionary

Morbidity

The term morbidity is generally used with the intention of expressing the frequency with which a given disease manifests itself in the population. In this sense, to say that a pathology is one of the most common causes of morbidity means to underline its wide diffusion in the population. By contrast, rare diseases are characterized by very low morbidity.

This interpretation of the term fully reflects the meaning of "morbidity", as the two words are often used as synonyms, especially in epidemiology. In occupational medicine, on the other hand, the term morbidity refers to work lost due to a disease; this parameter is calculated by executing the percentage ratio between the days of absence from work for its cause and the number of working days provided for the group of subjects considered.

A cold, for example, is an associated disease:

  • at very high morbidity (or very high morbidity if the two terms are used as synonyms, therefore considering them as the ratio between the number of sick subjects and the total population)
  • and low morbidity (if considered as the number of working days lost due to the disease, which being mild, does not generally prevent going to work).