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Morbidity refers to the state of being diseased or the incidence of disease in a population. In epidemiological terms, it specifically deals with the frequency or rate at which a disease occurs within a given population over a specified period of time. This can include both the prevalence of existing cases of a disease and the incidence of new cases.

The other options address different aspects of health metrics: the rate of infection pertains to how many people are infected by a pathogen, which is not synonymous with morbidity; the measure of frequency of death, often referred to as mortality, focuses solely on death rates rather than disease; and severity of disease pertains to how serious or impactful a disease is once it is contracted, rather than how often it occurs. Thus, morbidity captures the broader concept of how many individuals live with the disease and is a crucial factor in understanding public health.