Case Assignment: Descriptive and Analytic Epidemiology
This assignment has two parts.
Part 1: Write a descriptive epidemiological analysis of the following diseases: Lyme disease or Malaria. Describe the basic epidemiological patterns of this health condition by person, place, and time.
Part 2: You are a Health Officer for a rural county health department and have been assigned to study the frequency of an infectious disease such as tuberculosis or HIV/AIDS. Write an essay in which you do the following:
1. Describe observational and experimental epidemiology as the two study designs apply to either of the diseases you have chosen. Be sure to identify differences between these two types of analytic epidemiology.
2. Under what conditions will you conduct a case-control study as opposed to a cohort study?
Be sure to support your opinion with evidence from the literature. Please research from the module materials and any credible, scholarly and professional source including the University's online library in providing your response.
Length: 3-4 pages, excluding title page and references.
Required Reading
Boston University School of Public Health (n.d.). Overview of analytic studies.
Carneiro, I. & Howard, N. (2011). Introduction to epidemiology (2nd ed). Open University Press: New York, NY. ISBN: 9780335244621
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). (2012). Lesson 1: Introduction to Epidemiology, Section 6: Descriptive Epidemiology. Principles of epidemiology in public health practice (3rd ed.), pp. 1-31. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Workforce and Career Development, Atlanta, GA.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2014). E-learning course - Introduction to public health surveillance.
Ellis-Christensen, T. (2016). What is descriptive epidemiology? Retrieved from: https://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-descriptive-epidemiology.htm
Optional Reading
Cosio G (2012). Epidemiological Overview of Tuberculosis [Presentation].
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (2016). Malaria.