Epidemiology is the study that shows how frequently diseases appear in various groups of the folks and why.
Research in epidemiology inspects different diseases and check whether there is any connection or inter-relationship with, for e.g., vulnerability to cigarette smoke or stress, infectious agents, radiation and state of hypertension, obesity, lung cancer, myocardial infarction etc.
The above knowledge and its understanding are then utilized in the progress of disease prevention.