Point prevalence

Assistant Editor(s)-In-Chief: Kristin Feeney, B.S.

Overview
In epidemiology, point prevalence 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.

Calculation
Point prevalence can be described by the formula: Prevalence = Number of existing cases on a specific date ÷ Number of people in the population on this date