“Outbreak at Watersedge: A Public Health Discovery Game” introduces you to the type of detective work performed by public health employees to discern the source of a localized outbreak. It introduces you to methods of investigation, public health data gathering, data interpretation, single, identifiable or point source microbial contamination and teaches basic epidemiological principles. Please use this interactive to explore these processes. In the simulation you use descriptive epidemiology to organize and summarize data – epidemiological variables – according to time, place, and person. You find out who was affected, when the exposure to an infectious agent occurred and where the individuals where at the time of exposure in order to track down the sources of the outbreak.

Access the online Outbreak at Watersedge: A Public Health Discovery Game Flash simulation or download the offline Outbreak at Watersedge: A Public Health Discovery Game version. Launch the game and begin your internship at the Watersedge Department of Health. Then, consider the challenges epidemiologists confront when an outbreak is scaled up to epidemic or even pandemic proportions. In the “Outbreak at Watersedge” you have five interviews to map and one potential site to sample. Imagine if you had hundreds or thousands of these interviews with multiple sites to investigate!

Remember, the purpose of an epidemiologic study is to quantify the relationship between an exposure and a negative health outcome. For your discussion,

• How could you prove there was an epidemic occurring in your community involving one of the following organisms?*

o Escherichia coli 0157:H7

o Influenza virus

OR

•

o Salmonella spp.

I chose Influenza virus

1. Explain why your selected microbe is the suspected etiological agent.

•

o What symptoms would you expect to see?

o Is there a nonhuman host present?

o What survival strategies (virulence factors) are associated with these microbes that support pathogenicity?

2. Based on the principles of epidemiological investigation learned in the outbreak, propose how you could use this methodology to detect the source and propose preventative measures leading to control of the outbreak.

essay must be at least 280 words. It should include citations and references to support your conclusions