prevalence

UK/ˈpɹɛvələns/US/ˈpɹɛvələns/

nounC1Rare in speech; mostly a word you read · #15,152 of 15,258mostly written

Prevalence is how widespread something is. The prevalence of the disease.

In medicine it means how many have a condition at one time, where incidence means how many get it. Rising prevalence can mean better detection rather than more illness.

Definitions of prevalence

1nounprevalenceHow widespread something is.C1
“The prevalence in that age group had doubled in ten years.”

prevalence is a measure.

Where it comes from

Middle French
prévalence
English, today
prevalence

Borrowed from Middle French prévalence.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA

Practise this word

prevalence in the wild

The PPV and NPV are not intrinsic to the test (as true positive rate and true negative rate are); they depend also on the prevalence.
Positive and negative predictive values
Listed here are the prevalence rates among adults in various countries, based on data from various sources, largely the CIA World Factbook.
HIV adult prevalence rate
Adult HIV prevalence exceeds 20% in Eswatini, Botswana, Lesotho and Zimbabwe, while an additional five countries report adult HIV prevalence of at least 10%.
HIV adult prevalence rate
However, the study's 1% figure may reflect an underestimate of prevalence in low- and middle-income countries.
Epidemiology of autism
Report from Tanzania PHIA of 2016/17 shows that HIV prevalence among women is higher (6.2%) than men (3.1%).
HIV/AIDS in Tanzania

1 / 3

From Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. These sentences were written by other people about their own subjects; they are here to show the word at work, not as anybody’s opinion.

← Vocabulary