Outbreak and Investigation Reading Resources
Welcome to the One Health Resource Library. Below, watch the video of Dr. Marcela Uhart, a wildlife veterinarian with the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, as she provides background and context on the content that is available for download in this library.
Field Guides
- Biosafety and Personal Protective Equipment Field Guide
- Rodent Sampling Field Guide
- Bushmeat Sampling Field Guide
- Non-Human Primate Field Guide
- Bat Sampling Field Guide
Module 1 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
- For further information on the approach to outbreak investigation, please find attached below a perspective by Dr. Arthur Reingold published in Emerging Infectious Diseases in 1998.
Reingold 1998_Outbreak Investigations – A Perspective.pdf
- FOCUS of Field Epidemiology is a periodical published bi-monthly between 2003-2008 by the North Carolina Center for Public Health Preparedness at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Below is Volume 1 of the first issue, which provides an overview of outbreak investigations. We will return to several other issues of FOCUS throughout this course, with the complete series made available online here: https://sph.unc.edu/epid/focus/
FOCUS_Field Epidemiology_UNC.pdf
- For an overview of the epidemiology principles for outbreak response and description of where progress has been made over the past 5 years, please read the below publication by Drs. Catherine F Houlihan and and James AG Whitworth of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, published in Clinical Medicine in 2019.
Houlihan and Whitworth_2019.pdf
Module 2 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
- To learn more about the One Health approach, including opportunities such as lecture series and global events, please visit the below websites:
- For further information on the epidemiologic approach to outbreak investigations, including case definitions, please see the US CDC’s Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice, Third Edition self-study course textbook.CDC_Principles of Epidemiology in Public Health Practice Third Edition-1.pdf
- For additional reading on transmission pathways for emerging zoonotic diseases, please read the attached publication from Vector-Borne and Zoonotic Diseases by Loh et al. (2015). Download Loh et al. (2015).
- Below, please see the WHO’s COVID-19 case definitions for SARS-COV-2 infection from December 2020. This is a nice example of the different criteria for a suspect, probable, and confirmed case of SARS-CoV-2 infection.
WHO-2019-nCoV-Surveillance_Case_Definition-2020.2-eng.pdf
Additional Recommended Viewings
- A series of training videos on the 10 steps of an outbreak investigation were produced for an online learning platform of the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control. These outbreak training modules are from the ECDC’s Introduction to Outbreak Investigation e-learning course. Access to these video resources is free, however you will first need to create an account with the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control to access the e-learning videos. Instructions on how to create an account with the ECDC and to enroll in the “Introduction to Outbreak Investigation” e-learning course are below. To register an account with the ECDC, please visit: https://register.ecdc.europa.eu/register and create a new user account. You will be asked to verify your email address. Once you have confirmed your account, you may now sign in as an external user, using your username or email address in combination with your password. For any technical issues, please contact the ECDC Helpdesk – ICT Front Office by emailing: ICT.FrontOffice@ecdc.europa.eu. Once you have successfully created your account and enrolled in the ECDC Introduction to Outbreak Investigation course, we would recommend viewing the following videos to accompany Module 2:
- ECDC Step 1 – Establish the existence of an outbreak
- ECDC Step 3 – Establish a case definition
Module 3 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
- Below is Volume 1, Issue 2 of the FOCUS on Field Epidemiology newsletter from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, describing the anatomy and physiology of an outbreak investigation team.
FOCUS_Outbreak Team_UNC.pdf Download FOCUS_Outbreak Team_UNC.pdf
- For more information on surveillance systems, please review Volume 5, Issue 6 of the FOCUS on Field Epidemiology newsletter from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
FOCUS_Surveillance Systems_UNC.pdf Download FOCUS_Surveillance Systems_UNC.pdf
Additional Recommended Viewing
- Instructions on how to register for the European Centres for Disease Control (ECDC) e-learning course on Introduction to Outbreak Investigation can be found under “Additional Recommended Viewing” for Module 2. To accompany the lessons and learning objectives from Module 3, we recommend you watch the following video from the ECDC Outbreak Investigation course:
- ECDC Step 4 – Identify cases and obtain information
Module 4 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
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- For further information on the role of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) during rapid needs assessments, please read the please read Volume 5, Issue 5 of the FOCUS on Field Epidemiology newsletter from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
FOCUS_Rapid Needs Assessment and GIS_UNC.pdf
- For more on spatiotemporal analyses, including information on software for analyzing spatio-temporal data, please visit Columbia University’s website on Population Health Methods: https://www.publichealth.columbia.edu/research/population-health-methods/spatiotemporal-analysis#software.
Module 5 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
- For additional reading on epidemiologic study methods, including how we compare the risk of disease and the presence or absence of risk factors, please find here Chapter 13 of Mandell, Douglas, and Bennett’s Principles and Practice of Infectious Diseases, “Epidemiologic Principles”, authored by Drs. Michael Osterholm and Craig Hedberg.
Osterholm and Hedberg_Epidemiologic Principles-1.pdf
- For more general information on interviewing techniques and tips during an outbreak investigation, please read Volume 2, Issue 3 of the FOCUS on Field Epidemiology newsletter from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
FOCUS_Interviewing Techniques_UNC.pdf
Additional Recommended Viewings
Instructions on how to register for the European Centres for Disease Control (ECDC) e-learning course on Introduction to Outbreak Investigation can be found under “Additional Recommended Viewing” for Module 2. To accompany the lessons and learning objectives from Module 5, we recommend you watch the following video from the ECDC Outbreak Investigation course:
- ECDC Step 5 – Generate a hypothesis
- ECDC Step 6 – Evaluate the hypothesis
Module 6 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
- For additional guidance and recommendations regarding laboratory-related tasks involved in a field investigation, please review
- Chapter 9 from the CDC’s Field Epidemiology Manual,
- Optimizing Epidemiology–Laboratory Collaborations
Additional Recommended Video Trainings
- For further information on COVID-19 laboratory work, please watch the below video: “In collaboration with the African Society for Laboratory Medicine (ASLM) and the LabCoP community, the CDC International Laboratory Branch (ILB) offers this healthcare and laboratory waste management distance learning opportunity. These sessions cover critical issues of waste management with particular focus on viral load waste products, and are relevant to laboratorians, laboratory safety managers, biosafety officers, waste management and environmental protection personnel, quality assurance personnel, and healthcare workers.”
May 2020 Waste Management Training: COVID-19 Biosafety Guidance for Laboratories
Module 7 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
- For additional reading on measurements used in descriptive epidemiology, please find below Chapter 3 (Links to an external site.) from Epidemiology and the Delivery of Health Care Services (pages 65-90). Reference: D.M. Oleske (ed.), Epidemiology and the Delivery of Health Care Services: Methods and Applications, DOI 10.1007/978-1-4419-0164-4_3, © Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2009
Module 8 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
- More information on ethics during outbreak scenarios can be found here, in the World Health Organization’s 2016 publication, Guidance for managing ethical issues in infectious disease outbreaks.
- For case studies of ethical considerations specific to pandemics, please refer to The National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy’s 2010 publication, Ethical Questions During a Pandemic.
- Further reading on the purpose and function of IRBs can be found in the 2008 overview by Drs. Kyle Enfield and Jonathon Truwit and Jonathon Truwit, as well as the history and role of the IRB in Dr. Margaret Moon’s 2009 publication in the
Additional Recommended Trainings
- For additional training on public health interventions to better manage disease outbreaks and health emergencies, enroll online to take the WHO’s three-hour course, Public Health Interventions in Pandemics and Epidemics.
Module 9 Recommended Readings
Below, please find the OIE training manual on wildlife disease surveillance specific to outbreak investigations in wildlife. Other relevant training manuals developed for the OIE Wildlife Focal Point can be found here
Below are example SOPs and protocols developed for the safe and human collection of rodents, bats, non-human primates, bush-meat, and principles of field biosafety and physical security during field ecology investigations.
Below is a reference chapter “Safe Work Practices for Working with Wildlife” from the US Geological Survey detailed an approach to field ecology investigations and example donning and doffing procedures for field PPE.
Below are references that describe in more detail the proper setup and analysis of rodent capture webs and transects to ensure scientifically valid measurements of species diversity and abundance during field ecological investigations of rodents.
Module 10 Recommended Readings
Additional Recommended Readings
- The 3rd Edition of the International Health Regulations (2005) can be accessed and downloaded using the below PDF.
IHR_2005_3rd edition_English.pdf
Additional Recommended Viewing
- For additional information on Institutional Review Boards, please view the following video from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (Links to an external site.)
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