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
    1. Examples
    2. Limitations
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
23. Vaccination programmes
24. Water supply, sanitation, and shelter
25. Violence
26. Presentation of results
27. Formulating conclusions and recommendations
28. Dissemination and action

Examples

(go to Outline)

Administrative estimates of vaccination coverage:

Virtually all vaccination programmes, including both mass campaigns and routine vaccination, require vaccinators to record how many doses of vaccine have been delivered. If the target group for the vaccination is clearly defined and all vaccinators vaccinate only target group members, the number of doses of vaccine administered can be divided by an estimate of the size of the target group to determine what proportion of the target group has been vaccinated. (for more information, see section on Administrative estimate of vaccine coverage)

Latrine coverage:

The number of latrines constructed is divided by the population to determine how many persons, on average, are using each latrine. (for more information, see pages on Sanitation indicators)

Case-fatality rates to monitor the quality of curative services:

For patients with selected diagnoses upon admission to inpatient facilities, medical records could be reviewed to determine what proportion died during their inpatient stay and what proportion were discharged alive.

Coverage of non-food item distributions

The number of items distributed divided by the number of people in the targetted beneficiary population should produce an estimate of coverage of the distribution. For example, if 4000 blankets were distributed among 5000 people who had no blankets to begin with, the coverage of blanket ownership can be roughly estimated as 80%.