Epidemiologist in a Box: An injury data analysis tool

APHA Scientific Session and Event Listing

Holly Shipp, MPH, Leslie Upledger Ray, PhD MPH MPPA MA, Alan M. Smith, PhD, MPH, and Barbara M. Stepanski, MPH. Emergency Medical Services, County of San Diego, 6255 Mission Gorge Road, San Diego, CA 92120, 619-285-6429, holly.shipp@sdcounty.ca.gov

Most injury prevention programs must manipulate, interpret, and report data without the help of an epidemiologist or biostatistician. In response to a request from Safe Kids San Diego and the Center for Injury Prevention, Policy and Practice, staff at the County of San Diego, Emergency Medical Services developed Epidemiologist in a Box; a free, easy-to-use spreadsheet tool designed to empower injury coalitions and groups to give numbers to their message, both legislatively and programmatically.

The purpose of Epidemiologist in a Box was to allow people who are not data-proficient to take raw injury and population data and enter it into a spreadsheet that automatically generates injury rates, tables, and graphs. Program managers use the output to compare injury rates between populations and among subgroups of the population, and to determine appropriate target injury rates.

This tool was first presented at the California Conference on Childhood Injury Control in October of 2005, and later at the Safe Kids Leadership Conference. A free download of Epidemiologist in a Box is available on the Safe Kids website, and copies of the CD are available by request through the Safe Kids Worldwide headquarters.

Epidemiologist in a Box users were asked to complete an evaluation assessing the tool and the ways in which it was incorporated into their program. Feedback was exceedingly positive, and indicated that program managers have significant need for assistance in data management and interpretation.

Learning Objectives: At the conclusion of the session, the participant (learner) will be able to

Use Epidemiologist in a Box to calculate rates, tables, and graphs for use in their injury prevention program.
Interpret the output from Epidemiologist in a Box, and use this output to report injury data to stakeholders.

Keywords: Injury Prevention, Data/Surveillance

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

Any relevant financial relationships? No

Recorded presentation

Research

The 134th Annual Meeting & Exposition (November 4-8, 2006) of APHA