[Tasks, principles and methods of applied infectious disease epidemiology/field epidemiology]

Abstract

Applied infectious disease epidemiology/field epidemiology involves the application of epidemiologic methods to unexpected health problems when a rapid, on-site investigation is necessary for timely intervention. While field investigations of acute problems share the need of high methodological quality with prospectively planned studies, they may differ in several respects. In particular, because field investigations of ten start without a clear hypothesis, they may require the use of descriptive studies to generate a hypothesis before analytic studies are conducted. There also may be an immediate need to protect the population's health, pressure to intervene may conflict with the need to investigate and publicity may introduce bias. Outbreak investigations are paradigms of the use and methodology of applied infectious disease epidemiology/field epidemiology. The steps of an outbreak investigation include verification, confirming the diagnosis, developing a case definition and case finding, describing the data in terms of time, place and person, risk identification, formulating and testing of a hypothesis, planning for further studies, establishing control measures and communicating the findings.