Rasmussen Community health Practice Test

The main idea is how widespread and persistent a disease is in a population. Endemic means the disease is constantly present in a population or area at a relatively stable, expected level—the normal baseline. An epidemic is a sudden increase in the number of cases above that normal baseline in a specific place and time. A pandemic is an epidemic that has spread across multiple countries or continents, affecting a large global population.

So the best way to distinguish them is: Endemic corresponds to normal baseline, Epidemic to increased cases, and Pandemic to global spread. The alternative that swaps these concepts doesn’t match how the terms are used, since endemic implies steady presence rather than a rise, and an epidemic can occur in a local area rather than worldwide.