Data collected from the field work are just meaningless numbers, until the epidemiologists turn them into informationWhen it has been established that there has been an outbreak of disease, the very first step in an epidemiologist’s investigation is to collect preliminary data about the epidemic, to get a better idea of the “who”, “where”, and “when” of the situation. This is called descriptive epidemiology, because it involves describing the situation to better understand what is going on.
For example- suppose there is a sudden outbreak of flu. The first step that epidemiologists would take would be to use descriptive epidemiology. They would need to find out who has the flu, where do the people with the flu live, and when did people get infected with the flu. Once they have collected data answering these three questions, epidemiologists can get some clues about what to do next, because data that is collected may reveal trends that may show how or why the epidemic occurs.
Sources:
Jha, Prabhat, and Witold A. Zatonski. "“Smoking and Premature Mortality: Reflections on the Contributions of Sir Robert Doll”." JAMC (August 2005).
“Introduction to Basic Epidemiology and Principles of Statistics for Tropical Diseases Control”. World Health Organization. 2002.
Okasha, Mona. "Commentary: Mona Okasha Takes You Through the Paper and Explains What It Means." Student BMJ (March 2003).
Yoder, Linder H. "Lung Cancer Epidemiology." MEDSURG Nursing (June 2006).
"Steps of an Outbreak Investigation." Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
.
Aragón, Tomás, Wayne Enanoria, and Arthur Reingold. Essential Field Epidemiology. Center for Infectious Disease Preparedness, UC Berkeley School of Public Health. 2006.
