Author Question: A nurse is investigating an outbreak of a gastrointestinal illness from a food-borne pathogen. Which ... (Read 71 times)

Mr. Wonderful · **on:** Jul 8, 2018

A nurse is investigating an outbreak of a gastrointestinal illness from a food-borne pathogen. Which of the following terms is being applied?

a. Attack rate
b. Point epidemic
c. Secular trend
d. Event-related cluster

Question 2

A nurse examines birth and death certificates during an epidemiologic investigation. Which of the following data categories is being used?

a. Routinely collected data
b. Data collected for other purposes but use-ful for epidemiologic research
c. Original data collected for specific epide-miologic studies
d. Surveillance data

Cheesycrackers · **Reply #1 on:** Jul 8, 2018

Answer to Question 1

ANS: B
One temporal and spatial pattern of disease distribution is the point epidemic. A point epidemic is most clearly seen when the frequency of cases is plotted against time. The sharp peak charac-teristic of such graphs indicates a concentration of cases in some short interval of time. Attack rate is defined as the proportion of persons who are exposed to an agent and develop the disease. Secular trends are long-term patterns of morbidity or mortality rates. Event-related clusters are patterns in which time is not measured from fixed dates on the calendar but from the point of some exposure or event, presumably experienced in common by affected persons, although not occurring at the same time.

Answer to Question 2

ANS: A
Birth and death certificates are considered to be vital records and are examples of data collected routinely. Data collected for other purposes would be hospital, physician, health department, la-boratory, and insurance records. Original data is that which is collected by the National Center for Health Statistics for specific health surveys. Surveillance data is used to assess and prioritize the health needs of populations, design public health and clinical services to address those needs, and evaluate the effectiveness of public health programs.