Disease Detectives B/C

[Flavorflav]

I had my regionals a few weeks ago, and we were asked to calculate the relative risk from mortality rates. Specifically the population in question was grouped based on elevation of residence, and the mortality rate of each group was given. I know that relative risk is basically the rate of a condition among the exposed divided by the rate among the unexposed, but how should we determine which groups are considered exposed and unexposed when we have several levels of exposure?

Lowest exposure level is set to one (index) when there is no unexposed group. If you have several different exposures, lowest risk group is used as index.

[Flavorflav]

I've seen 2 triads: {person, place, and time} and {agent, host, environment}...on the test, if they ask for the epidemiological triad, which one do I put? On practice tests, different answer keys have different answers...

Thanks!

From our experiences, the agent/host/environment triad tends to be the one. However, use context to discern the motive. Person/place/time tends to actuate during descriptive epidemiology (step 4 of outbreak investigation)

I had the same question, and eventually came to the same answer . Like hmath said, agent/host/environment is what they usually want, unless the question is referring to descriptive epidemiology.

I have one question,
What would be the different ways of prevention for different types of transmission?
Thanks, and what prevention would they be classified as?

You can probably find a lot of this information online. Here's a couple of websites to get you started:
http://www.cdc.gov/HAI/settings/outpati ... tions.html
http://www.iwh.on.ca/wrmb/primary-secon ... prevention

The "Epidemiological Triad" is agent, host, environment. Person, place and time are the three elements of a case definition. Some add a fourth, clinical features.

[RSJ-JK]

hi guys!!!!!!!
we're new to this event. do you have any tips for us??????
thx #scioly4life

The Scioly wiki has most of the materials you will probably need, and feel free to ask questions here!

[RSJ-JK]

Does anybody know what types of studies are considered as surveys? Thanks!!!

[maxxxxx]

Does anybody know what types of studies are considered as surveys? Thanks!!!

Cross-Sectional and Case-Control are surveys. I think Ecological may involve some surveying also, but I'm not sure.

[JoJoKeKe]

I had my regionals a few weeks ago, and we were asked to calculate the relative risk from mortality rates. Specifically the population in question was grouped based on elevation of residence, and the mortality rate of each group was given. I know that relative risk is basically the rate of a condition among the exposed divided by the rate among the unexposed, but how should we determine which groups are considered exposed and unexposed when we have several levels of exposure?

Lowest exposure level is set to one (index) when there is no unexposed group. If you have several different exposures, lowest risk group is used as index.

Could you give an example of a question where there are exposure "levels"? I've never seen anything like this on a test, but would like to add something like to my reference sheet. Thank you!

[yang573]

Lowest exposure level is set to one (index) when there is no unexposed group. If you have several different exposures, lowest risk group is used as index.

Could you give an example of a question where there are exposure "levels"? I've never seen anything like this on a test, but would like to add something like to my reference sheet. Thank you!

The first example that comes to mind is when you have people exposed to a particular exposure in different amounts, such as milligrams of lead. When that occurs, just create multiple 2x2 tables comparing each individual exposure level with the control/index level.

[Eggo]

I was at OC regionals this weekend, and my partner and I felt as if we were taking a green generation test. It asked us obscure facts about ecology, such as the various biomes of brazil, or how carbon emissions impacted the world. There was almost no link to epidemiology, except for the tiebreakers that asked about Hill's Criteria. I was thinking that maybe the Event Supervisor had interpreted population growth as ecology. Has anyone else seen a DD test with 90% Green Gen?

[Flavorflav]

I had my regionals a few weeks ago, and we were asked to calculate the relative risk from mortality rates. Specifically the population in question was grouped based on elevation of residence, and the mortality rate of each group was given. I know that relative risk is basically the rate of a condition among the exposed divided by the rate among the unexposed, but how should we determine which groups are considered exposed and unexposed when we have several levels of exposure?

Lowest exposure level is set to one (index) when there is no unexposed group. If you have several different exposures, lowest risk group is used as index.

Could you give an example of a question where there are exposure "levels"? I've never seen anything like this on a test, but would like to add something like to my reference sheet. Thank you!

Yang's answer is a good one - virtually everyone has some exposure to lead, radiation etc. and of course every one lives at some elevation, so there is no unexposed group, only a least exposed group.

[kanademi]

I was at OC regionals this weekend, and my partner and I felt as if we were taking a green generation test. It asked us obscure facts about ecology, such as the various biomes of brazil, or how carbon emissions impacted the world. There was almost no link to epidemiology, except for the tiebreakers that asked about Hill's Criteria. I was thinking that maybe the Event Supervisor had interpreted population growth as ecology. Has anyone else seen a DD test with 90% Green Gen?

ayyyy I was there at OC as well and I totally understand what you mean. I thought we were going to do alright on the event even though my partner got switched out, since I had studied the textbook pretty well and thought I had a pretty good grasp on epidemiology.

But then the first half of the test was all questions on climate change, and we got wrecked because we weren't prepared for those kinds of questions. I understand (somewhat) the reasoning behind them using climate change the way they did: the scenario talked about how climate change influenced migration. But then the questions didn't focus on the migration of people at all, only on the climate change. They even asked vocab specific to climate change.

Anyways, my question to you all is: how does one study for the population growth topics? Do you just have to read articles related to the topics and hope that you remember all the facts that they talk about? I thought the growth questions they asked would be mainly logical questions, not knowledge-based ones.