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Risk factors are factors that increase the chances of an untoward event.
Introduction
Understanding of health and illness remains incomplete without the consideration of risk factors. As risk factors are present much before the outcome, their understanding will help in promoting health and preventing development of illness. Outcome of the risk factors in the context of health refers to illness, disease, or disorder. For a given health-related adverse outcome in different individuals, the profile of risk factors in those individuals is not the same. This is because multiple risk factors interact among each other, as well as with the protective factors, in a highly complex manner to cause disease. The strength of association of risk factors with the index individual is also very important for understanding a particular outcome. For example, positive family history of schizophrenia increases the risk of development of...
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References
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Kar, S.K., Tripathy, S. (2019). Risk Factors. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_800-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_800-1
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