Content experts should review the draft questionnaire. This means that the results of such a study may be quite different from a study in which actual hearing (audiometric) tests are administered to each person in a household. The ability to conduct an epidemiologic field investigation efficiently and effectively depends on understanding the interconnectedness of its parts. Mailed and Internet surveys traditionally yield lower response rates than phone surveys; however, response rate for phone surveys also has declined during the past decade (. Take-Home Point: Increase in an unusual syndrome (microcephaly) prompted government health agencies to coordinate efforts to collect systematic case data, develop a standard case definition to use across jurisdictions, and conduct uniform laboratory testing for possible etiologic agents. Public Health Problem: In November 2008, CDCs PulseNet staff noted a multistate cluster of Salmonella enterididis serotype Typhimurium isolates with an unusual DNA fingerprint (pulsed-field gel electrophoresis [PFGE] pattern). Epidemiological data Provides timely information for decision-makers, the media, the public, and others about ongoing investigations. The analyses and results are only as good as the quality of the data collected (remember GIGO!). Through this process of organization, inspection, and interpretation of data, descriptive epidemiology serves multiple purposes (Box 6.1). For self-administered surveys, the format needs to be friendly, well-spaced, and easy to follow, with clear instructions and definitions. Close-ended questions could include cascading questions, which can be an efficient way to get more detailed information as one filters down through a hierarchy of questions (e.g., first you ask the participants state of residence, then a menu of that states counties drops down). Because population estimates or censuses follow standard geographic areas (e.g., city, census tract, county, state, or country), determination of rates is also restricted to these same areas. Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. How much? is expressed as counts or rates. An analysis of BMI by age from Ajloun and Jerash Governorates, Jordan, draws attention to increasing BMI and accumulating overweight prevalence for persons aged 1875 years (Table 6.3) (Ajloun Non-Communicable Disease Project, Jordan, unpublished data, 2017). We know by now that determining the validity and relevancy of research articles is important in health practices, and for clinical areas this also means addressing the In fact, epidemiology is often described as the basic science of public health, and for good reason. The application period for EIS Class of 2024 is now open through June 5, 2023. Factors to consider when deciding on data collection methods include the following: Before developing a survey instrument, review the investigation objectives (i.e., study questions) to identify the specific variables that need to be collected to answer the questions. Stratifying seasonal curves can further expose key differences by place, person, or other features (Figure 6.12) (12). The epidemic curve accompanying the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) contact diagram (Figure 6.2, panel B) illustrates these features, including waves with an approximate 1-week periodicity. Cases not included in clusters are marked with smaller dots. Epidemiology is the branch of medical science that investigates all the factors that determine the presence or absence of diseases and disorders. This will be reflected by an instability of the epidemic curve. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. Contemp Ob/Gyn 1982;20:14761. The observed pattern might represent variability in the distribution of the underlying population. Exposure to lead has significant adverse health effects (e.g., developmental delays) particularly for young children with developing brains. Plot the rate, average, or total for each interval on a histogram or line graph. Graphs are most frequently used for displaying time associations and patterns in epidemiologic data. Measures the progress of control and prevention programs. Students of journalism are taught that a good news story, whether it be about a bank robbery, dramatic rescue, or presidential candidates speech, must include the 5 Ws: what, who, where, when and why (sometimes cited as why/how). This can be as simple as finding that a health event is affecting only a limited age group or as complicated as comparing age-specific rates among multiple groups. Compare food histories between persons with, ____ 2. Generation periods between waves of an outbreak are usually longer than with simple person-to-person transmission because two sequential incubation periods, extrinsic in the vector and intrinsic in the human, are involved. The counts of incident or prevalent cases can be compared with their historical norm or another expected or target value. WebIn general, epidemiological data is a crucial instrument for influencing changes in medical procedures. Vital statistics remain an important source of data for understanding leading and unusual causes of death (e.g., childhood influenza-associated, viral hemorrhagic fever, variant Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease), and their timeliness is improving thanks to the electronic death reporting system, which many states have implemented (5). WebThis problem has been solved! Statistics/Nursing - Describe how epidemiological data Cookies used to track the effectiveness of CDC public health campaigns through clickthrough data. CDC twenty four seven. Text that highlights the main patterns of the data (this text might appear within the table or graphic or in the body of the report). These factors have potential impact on population health states similar to that of risk factors on disease occurrence. To indicate divergence from an average range, use white for the center range and deepening intensities of two different hues for divergent strata on opposite extremes. Public Health Response: The broad scope of the outbreak and severity of illness required coordination of data collection across jurisdictions and use of multiple data sources to identify a common source. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) cannot attest to the accuracy of a non-federal website. Compare frequency of brain cancer among anatomists with frequency in general population, ____ 3. WebWK-5 DQs DQ-1 Describe how epidemiological data influences changes in health practices. To approximate the time of exposure, count backward to the average incubation period before the peak, the minimum incubation period from the initial cases, and the maximum incubation period from the last cases. Similarly, the epidemiologist uses the scientific methods of descriptive and analytic epidemiology as well as experience, epidemiologic judgment, and understanding of local conditions in diagnosing the health of a community and proposing appropriate, practical, and acceptable public health interventions to control and prevent disease in the community. If you do not allow these cookies we will not know when you have visited our site, and will not be able to monitor its performance. Consider including dont know and refused response categories. Certain behaviors (e.g., drug addiction or mass sociogenic illness) might propagate from person to person, but the epidemic curve will not necessarily reflect generation times. Accessing or collecting clean, valid, reliable, and timely data challenges most field epidemiologic investigations. NRS-440V Week 5 Assignment Combining Nurse Leader With Advocacy. The important attributes of a public health surveillance system can and should be applied to data collected in response to an urgent event (see Introduction). How epidemiological data influences Study population, case definition, sample size, and selection. Epidemiological data play an important role in healthcare Epidemiological research Increasing environmental temperatures accelerate the multiplication of infectious agents in an arthropod. New York: Oxford University Press; 2001. p. 61. Interviewer-administered surveys provide more control by the interviewer than self-administered ones. Never mix incident with prevalent cases in epidemiologic analyses. Mark on a map the residences of all children born with birth defects within 2 miles of a hazardous waste site, ____ 4. CDC is not responsible for Section 508 compliance (accessibility) on other federal or private website. Electronic health records (EHRs) appear to be a promising newer source of data for public health surveillance and for assessing the prevalence of disease or behavioral risk factors in the population seeking healthcare (22). Therefore, the clinician and the epidemiologist have different responsibilities when faced with a person with illness. Provide an example and explain what data would be necessary to make a change in practice. Similarly, when the incubation period is known, you can estimate a time window of exposure and identify exposures to potential causative agents during that window. Nonetheless, many epidemiologists still use the term disease as shorthand for the wide range of health-related states and events that are studied. If the disease cause is unknown, this arrangement can assist the epidemiologist in developing hypotheses regarding possible exposures. Organizing data columns and rows by the magnitude of the marginal summary statistics is often helpful. You should also use a logarithmic scale for comparing two or more population groups. These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests. On the opposite end of the scale, injuries and acute poisonings have instantaneous and obvious onsets. Use separate, equally scaled epidemic curves to indicate different groups. The word epidemiology comes from the Greek words epi, meaning on or upon, demos, meaning people, and logos, meaning the study of. You can review and change the way we collect information below. This type of curve can be made for any time cycle (e.g., time of day, day of week, or week of influenza season). For probability sampling procedures other than a simple random sample (e.g., stratified or cluster sampling), consult with a survey sampling expert. Information about place of affected persons might include residence, workplace, school, recreation site, other relevant locales, or movement between fixed geographic points. Use six or fewer tick mark labels on the axes. This tends to prolong waves of vectorborne outbreaks. Furthermore, EHRs contain potentially useful data on healthcare use, treatment, and outcomes of a diseaseelements not typically assessed by more traditional public health data sources. Nowhere are data more important than during a field epidemiologic investigation to identify the cause of an urgent public health problem that requires immediate intervention. Cookies used to enable you to share pages and content that you find interesting on CDC.gov through third party social networking and other websites. Source: Adapted from Reference 2. aDefined as a symptom that improved while away from the facility, either on days off or on vacation. Below are three key terms taken from the definition of epidemiology, followed by a list of activities that an epidemiologist might perform. To calculate incidence, special care therefore is needed to avoid counting the same person every time a fluctuation occurs above or below the cutoff point. Determine Decisions Regarding Control Measure Implementation, Define The Investigations Objectives And Determine Data Needed, Multistate Outbreak Of Salmonella Typhimurium Infections Associated With Peanut Butter Containing Products, 2008 2009, Zika Virus Infection: An Emerging Vectorborne Disease, Environmental: Childhood Lead Poisoning And Drinking Water, Comparison Of Survey Methods In Norovirus Outbreak Investigation, Develop the Questionnaire or Survey Instrument, Calculate the Sample Size and Select the Sample, Review Legal Authority, Rules, and Policies Governing Data Collection, Issues and Challenges with Data Collection, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Provide an example and explain what data would be necessary to make a change in practice. WebThey concluded that epidemiological data helps to plan and strategizes in the prevention and management of epidemic diseases or illnesses. However, epidemiology also draws on methods from other scientific fields, including biostatistics and informatics, with biologic, economic, social, and behavioral sciences. Public Health Problem: To support a rapid response, field epidemiologists need to determine the most efficient, timely, and cost-effective method for data collection during an outbreak. Describe how epidemiological data influences changes in health practices. Cases of jaundice, by week of onset: Jafr, Maan Governorate, Jordan,June October 1999. Many outside parties are not familiar with the legal authority that public health agencies have to investigate and control diseases and exposures that affect the publics health and safety. Random or uniform distributions indicate that the exposure lies outside the group. To make the proper diagnosis and prescribe appropriate treatment for a patient, the clinician combines medical (scientific) knowledge with experience, clinical judgment, and understanding of the patient. Subsequent chapters discuss the details of data analysis. In September 2009, the Oregon Public Health Division investigated an outbreak of gastroenteritis that occurred among more than 2,000 participants of a week-long, 475-mile bicycle ride. Norovirus (GII) infection was confirmed as the causative agent. The underlying epidemiologic process might produce disease distributions within and among social groupings that range from strong aggregation to randomness or uniformity. Although engaging stakeholders, such as other public health agencies, community partners, industry leaders, affected businesses, healthcare practitioners, customers, and regulatory agencies, early in an investigation is time-consuming, including them is essential. For example, initial respiratory symptoms might indicate exposure through the upper airways, as in Table 6.2. Time patterns may be annual, seasonal, weekly, daily, hourly, weekday versus weekend, or any other breakdown of time that may influence disease or injury occurrence. Cost (e.g., interviewer time). These cookies perform functions like remembering presentation options or choices and, in some cases, delivery of web content that based on self-identified area of interests. Another example is injuries from snowmobile use, which have been calculated both as ratios per registered vehicle and as per crash incident (4). Let's take Ideally, code response categories in advance and on the instrument to facilitate data entry and analysis (e.g., yes = 1, no = 0). They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. Place patterns include geographic variation, urban/rural differences, and location of work sites or schools. The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) of 1996 (31) has specific language allowing for the use of personal health information by government agencies to perform public health activities. This task, called descriptive epidemiology, answers the following questions about disease, injury, or environmental hazard occurrence: The first question is answered with a description of the disease or health condition. Defined as current use of asthma medicine or one or more of the following symptoms during the previous 12 months: wheezing or whistling in the chest, awakening with a feeling of chest tightness, or attack of asthma. Like the practice of medicine, the practice of epidemiology is both a science and an art. The outbreak grew to involve 714 case-patients in 46 states; 166 (23%) were hospitalized and 9 (1%) died. Information about who participants should contact with questions. For example, elevated childhood blood lead levels are a reportable condition, prompting investigation into possible environmental sources of lead. The areas are then ranked into strata by the rates, and the strata are shaded (Box 6.10) according to the magnitude of the rate. When starting data entry, check several records against the completed survey instrument for accuracy and consider double data entry of a sample of surveys to check for errors. Understanding how participants are interpreting and answering questions can enable corrections to the wording before it is too late. We take your privacy seriously. If you know both time of onset and time of the presumed exposure, you can estimate the incubation or latency period. Describe how epidemiological data influences changes Control measures targeting the larva and adults of the mosquito vectors Aedes aegypti and A. albopictus began late in the first generation. An important and potentially time-saving step is to review prior epidemiologic investigations of similar illnesses and, whenever possible, use or adapt existing protocols, including standard data collection approaches and case definitions. Scale the graph to fill the data space and to improve resolution. After the data are organized and displayed, descriptive epidemiology then involves interpreting these patterns, often through comparison with expected (e.g., historical counts, increased surveillance, or output from prevention and control programs) patterns or norms. Ensure that potential exposures are easily discerned and labeled. Minimize frames, gridlines, and tick marks (610/axis is sufficient) to avoid interference with the data. WebEpidemiological data influences changes in health practices because it estimates the individual chances and risks of disease, and if an individual has a high risk of contracting a certain disease he or she may be forced to change some health practices. Social groupings might be as compact as a household or as diffuse as a social network linked by a common interest. You will be subject to the destination website's privacy policy when you follow the link. describe how epidemiological data influences changes in health Footnotes that explain any abbreviations used, the data sources, units of measurement, and other necessary details or data. They help us to know which pages are the most and least popular and see how visitors move around the site. In addition, debrief interviewers about issues they might have encountered (e.g., if participants cannot understand certain questions, those questions might need rewording). To indicate nominative (non-numeric) qualities, use different hues or fill patterns. Several states conduct population-based food preference surveys; such surveys are valuable in assessing the background rate of consumption of various food items and can help the field epidemiologist determine whether a foodborne outbreak in which many case-patients report eating a particular food item needs to be investigated further. Thank you for taking the time to confirm your preferences. Cookies used to make website functionality more relevant to you. Wednesday 10 Organizing descriptive data into tables, graphs, diagrams, maps, or charts provides a rapid, objective, and coherent grasp of the data. If you need to go back and make any changes, you can always do so by going to our Privacy Policy page. Emphasizing a population perspective, For example, the consistent time interval between rotavirus vaccination and onset of intussusception (Table 6.1) helped build the hypothesis that the vaccine precipitated the disease (1). Examples of data sources for assessing possible exposures include sales receipts (e.g., meals ordered online or food items purchased from a particular store) (20) and law enforcement data (e.g., drug seizures involving illicit fentanyl in conjunction with opioid overdose deaths due to fentanyl) (21). These distance associations of cases or rates are best understood on maps. A more precise approach to estimating how much for measurements on a continuous scale, discussed earlier in this chapter, might be to compute the average and dispersion of the individual BMI measurements, as shown on a box-and-whisker plot (Figure 6.1). The best charts for quick and accurate understanding are dot plots, box-and-whisker plots, and simple bar charts. The resulting rate allows epidemiologists to compare disease occurrence across different populations. Epidemiology is concerned with the frequency and pattern of health events in a population: Frequency refers not only to the number of health events such as the number of cases of meningitis or diabetes in a population, but also to the relationship of that number to the size of the population. - Epidemiologists and nurse researchers use descriptive, analytic, and Age represents three different categories of determinants of disease risk (Box 6.11). 12/29/2021 Biology High School answered describe how epidemiological data influences changes in health practices. Guidelines for Graphical Data Presentation, Characteristics of Propagated Epidemic Curves, Factors Affecting Patterns of HumanVectorHuman Transmission Across Time, Guidelines Regarding Data Display Area Of Epidemiologic Maps, Three General Interpretations of Age Distributions, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Contact between severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) cases among a group of relatives and health care workers: Beijing, China, 2003. Provide an example and explain what data would be necessary to make a change in practice. Adapting preexisting protocols and questionnaires will facilitate a timely response and consistency across jurisdictions. Summarize with average rates, average counts, or totals for all the Januarys, Februarys, and so on for each of the 12 months. After the outbreak peaks, the exhaustion of susceptible hosts usually results in a rapid downslope. Epidemiologists assume that illness does not occur randomly in a population, but happens only when the right accumulation of risk factors or determinants exists in an individual. Point source outbreaks result in infected persons who might have transmitted the agent directly or through a vehicle to others. HLT-362V DQ 5 12 .docx - Describe how epidemiological data Epidemiology is the study (scientific, systematic, data-driven) of the distribution (frequency, pattern) and determinants (causes, risk factors) of health-related states and events (not just diseases) in specified populations (patient is community, individuals viewed collectively), and the application of (since epidemiology is a discipline within public health) this study to the control of health problems. After the epidemiologist has confirmed the existence of an urgent public health problem, the next important task in a field investigation is to define the specific objectives and determine what data are necessary and sufficient to justify the control measures. Each person providing such an answer may interpret trouble hearing differently. Instead, put them just outside the data region. Adhere to mathematical principles in plotting data and scaling axes. These graphs can include line graphs, histograms (epidemic curves), and scatter diagrams (see Box 6.4 for general guidelines in construction of epidemiologic graphs). Study design (e.g., cohort study, casecontrol study). Similarly, data entry must have quality checks. Home > Homework Answsers > Nursing homework help. T5DQ1 Describe how epidemiological data influences changes in health practices. Is the objective to identify a point source (e.g., a contaminated food item) of an outbreak to recall the product? Enables generation of testable hypotheses regarding the etiology, exposure mode, control measure effectiveness, and other aspects of the health problem. WebWith that being said, epidemiological data can have an impact on changes in health practices. 6).docx - Describe how epidemiological data In addition, most states require laboratories to send cultures to the public health laboratory in their jurisdiction for confirmation, subtyping, and cataloging results in state and national databases. Ensures that you are fully versed in the basic dimensions of a health problem. Epidemiological research helps us to understand how many people have a disease or disorder, if those numbers are changing, and how the disorder affects our society and our economy. Scatter plots are versatile instruments for exploring and communicating data. Control over completeness and order of questions. Mean, median, range, and interquartile range of body mass index measurements of 1,800 residents, by education level: Ajloun and Jerash Governorates, Jordan, 2012. Six biologic differences in humanvectorhuman propagation affect the size and the shape of the epidemic curve (Box 6.7). The same is true in characterizing epidemiologic events, whether it be an outbreak of norovirus among cruise ship passengers or the use of mammograms to detect early breast cancer. Do not stack columns for different groups atop one another in the same graph. Contrast this with chronic diseases that can have exposures lasting for decades before development of overt disease. During the 2016 epidemic of Zika virus infection, understanding the ecologic niche for the Aedes mosquito vector was important when investigating an increase in febrile rash illnesses (Box 4.2) (12). WebEpidemiology is the branch of medical science that investigates all the factors that determine the presence or absence of diseases and disorders. For questions about the EIS program, please contact us directly at EISApplication@cdc.gov. BMI, Body mass index; F, female; M, male; SD, standard deviation. Other scenarios that challenge epidemiologists trying to access external data include concern by healthcare systems that requests for data on hospitalizations, clinic visits, or emergency department visits breach privacy of protected health information; concern by school officials that access to information about children during an outbreak associated with a school activity violates provisions of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (32); and concerns by businesses that case-patients in an outbreak associated with a particular food item or establishment might pursue legal action or lawsuits.