Point prevalence
Point prevalence in regards to epidemiology is a measure of the proportion of people in a population who have a disease or condition at a particular time, such as a particular date. It is like a snap shot of the disease in time. This is in contrast to period prevalence which is a measure of the proportion of people in a population who have a disease or condition over a specific period of time, say a season, or a year. Point prevalence can be described by the formula
Prevalence = no. of existing cases on a specific date/ no. of people in the population on this date
Reference: Gerstman, B.B. (2003) Epidemiology Kept Simple: An Introduction to Traditional and Modern Epidemiology (2nd ed.) Hoboken, NJ: Wiley-Liss.
