An Introduction to Community & Public Health 8th Edition by James McKenzie, Pinger

Exercise 26

Assume that you were Kim and you were able to reach Dr. Turner, the local health officer. He then asked whether you would like to help in the investigation of the foodborne outbreak mentioned in the scenario. You agreed to help. So far, you have learned that on Sunday, May 28, 49 people were at a picnic where they had eaten, beginning about noon. People began to report their illnesses later that night. Dr. Turner developed a foodborne outbreak investigation worksheet, which you helped to complete by making numerous phone calls and house visits with the public health nurse. The histories of people attending the picnic appear in Table 1. Using Table 2 , the Epidemic Curve Tally Sheet, you tally the cases by hour of onset of illness. Using the results of the tally, you establish the incubation period-the range of hours (after the meal) over which symptoms started. Next, you prepare a graph to illustrate the epidemic curve of the outbreak. Try to answer the following questions:
Based solely on the incubation period, can youmake a guess as to the cause of the outbreak?
TABLE 1 Histories Obtained from Persons eating Picnic Lunch
*All time is p.m. unless otherwise indicated.
TABLE 2 Epidemic Curve Tally Sheet