Project Summary: For your session-long project, you will investigate an outbreak.
You are a health educator for the Disease Control Office at the County Health Department. You have been requested to attend an emergency meeting with some epidemiologists. During the meeting, you were informed that 20 kids became ill with diarrhea and fever at Middlebury Elementary School. Four children were hospitalized. The infection was with Salmonella.
Assignment:
According to the epidemiologic triangle, there are three factors that influence the occurrence of disease:
- Etiologic agent
- Host factors
- Environmental factors
Describe each of these factors for food-borne Salmonella infection. Do they all need to be present for disease to occur? (Review "Multiple Causation of Disease" on the modular Homepage.)