The use of epidemiological tools in conflict-affected populations: open-access educational resources for policy-makers

Table of Contents

1. Welcome
2. Introduction: Epidemiology in crises
3. Ethical issues in data collection
4. Need for epidemiologic competence
5. Surveys - Introduction
6. Surveys - Description of sampling methods
7. Surveys - Sampling error, bias, accuracy, precision, & sample size
8. Surveys - Resources required for surveys
9. Surveys - Critiquing survey reports
10. Surveillance - When to do surveillance
11. Surveillance - Methods
12. Surveillance - Common problems
13. Programme data
14. Rapid assessment
15. Mortality - Indicators and their measurement
16. Mortality - Data sources
17. Mortality - Interpretation and action
18. Nutrition - Introduction and background
19. Nutrition - Indicators and their measurement
20. Nutrition - Data sources
21. Nutrition - Interpretation and action
22. Health services
    1. Health service indicators
    2. Health service utilization
    3. Effectiveness of health services
    4. Delay in seeking health care
    5. Overall evaluation of health services
23. Vaccination programmes
24. Water supply, sanitation, and shelter
25. Violence
26. Presentation of results
27. Formulating conclusions and recommendations
28. Dissemination and action

Effectiveness of health services

(go to Outline)

Case-fatality ratio among inpatients

Some health problems can be mostly resolved during an inpatient stay or emergency visit. For example, patient follow-up sheets should be completed for each child admitted for rehydration. Extracting data from these sheets should allow calculation of the case-fatality ratio for children admitted with dehydration.

Diagnostic accuracy

Assessing the accuracy of health workers' diagnoses is especially important with some diseases which are difficult to diagnose only from signs and symptoms, but which require prompt, effective treatment. For example, malaria requires administration of appropriate drugs early in the course of disease. A simple malaria smear survey, where smear specimens are examined under a microscope from a series of patients diagnosed with malaria, can tell how accurate are clinical diagnoses of malaria.

Health worker treatment quality

Supervision of health workers should include periodic checks of how well they follow the standard treatment protocols recommended by the health coordinators. This may include interviews of health workers, periodic verbal or written testing, and observation.