Teaching Epidemiology in Developing Countries: a Field Exercise

Rohde J E (Field Staff, Rockefeller Foundation, Box 63, Yogyakarta, Indonesia) and Sadjimin T. Teaching Epi-demiology in developing countrlej: a field exercise. International Journal of Epidemiology 1980, 9: 369–373. A field exercise demonstrating the principles of a sample survey is described which, in 9 steps carried out over 3–4 days, provides reliable data on selected infectious diseases, vital rates, causes of mortality and other health indicators. Survey design, implementation, analysis and interpretation are applied in a practical and visible way during the exercise. Frequent outbreaks of common childhood infectious diseases in developing countries makes an epidemic tracing and characterisation exercise usually possible during the course of this exercise as well. The resulting data appear to be quite reliable, in contrast to existing data gathered passively through the health services system, and provide a useful indicator of present priorities and needed action in the control of infectious diseases.