Building Surge Epidemiology Capacity

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Building Surge Epidemiology Capacity

• Epidemiologic Data Collection Training for
  Non-Epidemiologists

West Hartford, CT December 11 2008
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Introduction for Epidemiology Support Personnel
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Training Developers

• Yale Center for Public Health Preparedness
• Supported by CDC Cooperative Agreement
  U90/CCU124251
• Connecticut Association of Directors of Health
• Connecticut Department of Public Health

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Emergency

• A serious, unexpected, and potentially dangerous
  situation requiring immediate action.
• W.H.O

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Disaster
A disaster is any occurrence that causes damage,
ecological disruption, loss of human life or
deterioration of health and health services on a
scale sufficient to warrant an extraordinary
response from outside the affected community
areas. W.H.O
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Common Features of Large Scale Disasters/Emergenci
es

• Pose a threat to public health safety
• May disrupt social and economic infrastructure
• May require large scale mobilization of resources
  to manage consequences.

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Types of Emergencies and Disasters

• Floods
• Large explosion
• Infectious disease epidemic
• Naturally occurring
• Bioterrorism

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Epidemic

• The occurrence of a disease in a community or
  region that has a frequency clearly in excess of
  normal expectancy
• epidemic Outbreak

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Crucial Role of Epidemiology in Disasters
Response

• To collect, analyze and disseminate
  health-related data on the affected community so
  that decision-makers can use the information to
  guide a rational response

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Epidemiology Support Personnel
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Who Are Epidemiology Support Staff

• Local public health workers including
• Nurses / Health Aides
• Health educators
• Sanitarians / Environmental health staff
• Other local health personnel

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Role of Epidemiology Support Staff

• To assist epidemiologists by collecting
  epidemiologic data during a wide scale epidemic
  or other public health disaster
• Interviews
• Medical chart reviews

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Support for your role

• You will never be working alone!
• You will be working as a part of a team
• You will always be assigned a supervisor to whom
  you can take your questions/concerns

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Confidentiality

• Confidentiality of information must be maintained
• You will be asked to sign a confidentiality
  agreement

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Training overview
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Overall Aim

• To introduce epidemiology support staff to the
  concepts and skills they will need to perform
  their role during a disaster response

• Additional specific training will be provided at
  the time of response!!

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Learning objectives

• By the end of the training you should be able to
• Describe the role of epidemiology support
  personnel
• List the ways that infections may be spread from
  person-to-person
• Define the term case definition and describe its
  importance for good quality epidemiologic data
  collection
• Describe interviewing techniques used to collect
  good quality epidemiology interview data
• List challenges interviewers face and describe
  methods for dealing with them
• Locate standard information in a medical chart
• Describe the purpose of and steps in a contact
  investigation interview

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Schedule
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Sources of training material

• Original material and material adapted from
• Florida Center for Public Health Preparedness
• Field Investigation Response and Surveillance
  Training
• Intermediate Field Investigation Response and
  Surveillance Training
• North Carolina Center for Public Health
  Preparedness
• Medical Terminology and Abbreviations
• New York State Department of Public Health
• Field Epidemiology Surge Team Training