Methods

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Methods

Veterinary Public Health (VPH) is of preventive and not of curative character, i.e. not only the individual but whole populations are of interest. Therefore, the veterinary epidemiology is the main subject of Veterinary Public Health. Veterinary Public Health includes several subareas of the traditional veterinary medicine: microbiology, virology, parasitology, pathology, food and feed hygiene, environmental hygiene, toxicology. 

The epidemiology is engaged in - following the definition of the WHO in 1990 - the examination of the distribution of diseases, physiological variables and consequences in populations as well as in the factors which influence this distribution. The dissimilitude of the tasks of Veterinary Public Health in the context animal - food - man leads to a wide spectrum of problems the heterogeneity of which may be seen as typical for veterinary epidemiology in the public health area. The main point is always the search for answers regarding groups, i.e. populations of animals, food or people. The modern veterinary epidemiology, therefore, exceeds the classic idea of epidemiology in terms of the dissemination of epizootic by far. 

The study design concerning the "Good Epidemiological Practice" starts with an exact definition of the question and the formation of the experimental design that establishes the required sample size, an adequate study type and the intended evaluation procedures. After the analysis, all collected data are sampled in a database considering the quality assurance. The single steps of analysis are documented in detail, the results are interpreted in the context of the existing scientific knowledge and published in appropriate media. 

Epidemiological methods: 

	Descriptive statistics / biometrics Fundamental terms of statistics, data collection, state and quantiles, association, correlation and regression, graphical display
	Descriptive epidemiology Measured values of frequencies of diseases, standardisation of rates (mortality, fertility etc.), measured values of association between diseases and risk factors
	Inductive statistics / biometrics Probability calculation, random variables and distributions, estimation of parameters, confidence intervals, statistical tests: one-sample-problem, two-sample-problem, models of the multifactorial analysis of variances and basics on study design
	Sampling methods

	Methods of random sampling: simple, stratified sampling, multi-stage sampling, proportional to aggregated size, interpenetrating
	Other methods: systematic, line-transect sampling and resampling

	Types of epidemiological studies / observational studies  Register, monitoring, cohort studies, case-control studies, cross-sectional surveys, intervention studies, ecological observations, simulations
	Clinical trials Controlled studies, experimental designs, randomization, blind studies, Good Clinical Practice
	Development of models  Development of statistical, deterministic and simulation models for the description of cause and effect relations, risk models, spatial and temporal prognoses, dynamics of diseases, transmission of infectious agents
	Planning of sample size  Sample size calculation in different types of studies and models of analysis by considering precision requirements (significance, relevance, power, variation)
	Evaluation of diagnostic tests Sensitivity, specificity and predictive values, ROC-analyses, diagnostic tests in epidemiological studies for the control of information bias
	Disease Surveillance Organization and control of surveillance programs of animal diseases, e.g. BSE/Scrapie, IBR/IPV, hog cholera, monitoring of antimicrobial resistance, organization of regional, national and international data bases
	Animal health and economics  Cost-benefit analyses
	Software

	WinEpiscope
	Software at EpiVetNet

Links

	Courses on Epidemiology of the Institute of biometry, epidemiology and information processing at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover, Foundation
	The Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
	Centres for Epidemiology and Animal Health
	Association for Veterinary Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
	University of Glasgow: Veterinary Informatics and Epidemiology
	Austrian Contributions to Veterinary Epidemiology

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last update: 01.02.2010                                                                     contact: who(at)tiho-hannover.de