An attack rate in
epidemiology is the incidence of infection in a group of people over a period of time, usually in relation to
foodborne illness.It is defined as the number of exposed persons infected with the disease divided by the total number of exposed persons.This ratio is measured from the beginning of an outbreak to the end of the outbreak.
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the measure of disease incidence observed in a small population sample over a short time — during an epidemic, for example.