A epidemiologia. De Hipócrates ao século XXI

Epidemiology is the science that allows us to study the distribution of the state of health/illness and their conditioning and determining factors in human populations. Epidemiology also allows the assessment of the effectiveness of interventions in the field of public health, as well allows to describe the differences in the health of populations and the search for etiological explanations for these inequalities. This article is a historical overview of the evolution of the concept of epidemiology and describes the contribution of the main responsibles for this evolution, from Hippocrates to the twenty-first century. We performed a search in the Pubmed/Medline to identify original publications, editorials and review articles about the subject in study using the following keywords, “epidemiology”, “public health”, “evidence based public health”, “historical evolution of epidemiology”, “epidemiological research in health”.