Incidence and incidents look similar, but they are not interchangeable.
Incidence usually means the rate, frequency, or degree of occurrence of something, especially in statistics, medicine, and research. It answers the question, How common is it? For example: The report tracks the incidence of asthma in children.
Incidents are individual events or specific cases. It answers the question, What happened? For example: Three security incidents occurred last week.
A simple way to remember the difference is this:
- Use incidence for a general level, rate, or pattern.
- Use incidents for separate events you can count.
Compare these examples:
- The incidence of workplace injuries has fallen this year.
- Two workplace incidents were investigated yesterday.
If you are talking about statistics or prevalence, choose incidence. If you mean actual events, reports, or cases, choose incidents.
