Descriptive epidemiology deals with describing disease patterns using three major categories: person, place, or time (Friis & Sellers, 2021). Consider the following example

Over the last weekend, six people went to the Alcan City Hospital emergency room with similar symptoms. The laboratory results for the six patients were indicative of an infection due to Escherichia coli (E. coli). Patient interviews revealed they had all eaten a meal at Sam’s Sandwich Food Truck during the Alcan City Fair within 48 hours of going to the hospital. Further inquiries by the Alcan City public health officials identified that the source.

Aside from the six patients who sought treatment, epidemiologists tracked down and conducted interviews with 400 of the fair attendees to identify any potential cases who did not seek treatment and compare data with those who attended but did not become ill. Interview questions pertained to descriptive aspects of the outbreak (person, place,time).

Descriptive epidemiologic studies are often conducted as precursors to analytic studies. Epidemiologic concepts are used to gather data to better understand and evaluate health trends in populations.

In this Discussion, you will apply the epidemiologic concepts of time, place, and person to a specific population health problem. You will also consider methods for obtaining data to study an issue. APA

Post a cohesive response that addresses the following:

• Describe your selected health problem using the epidemiologic model (person, place, and time)with a focus on the population affected by this problem.
• Discuss sampling methods you could use to collect primary data to describe and study your health problem.
• Identify two secondary data sources that you could use to collect the data needed to address this topic.
• Explain how these methods and sources would influence the completeness of case identification as well as the case definition/diagnostic criteria used.