Workshop on rapid surveys, Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP), Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand, August 6-10, 2007

WORKSHOP ON RAPID SURVEYS

Last Updated

10 Sep 2007

Click for Greetings

Professor Ralph R. Frerichs conducted a workshop on rapid surveys from August 6 through 10, 2007 for trainees, staff and guests of the Field Epidemiology Training Program (FETP), Ministry of Public Health, Nonthaburi, Thailand. Enrollment for the five day workshop was about 30 participants. Rapid surveys are small, two-stage cluster surveys of about 300 persons that usually take less than a month to complete.

The 5-day workshop focused on material presented in the UCLA course:	Click for Photo of Participants

EPI 418 Rapid Epidemiological Surveys in Developing Countries. Included was discussion of Epi Info, Stata 10 and Csurvey, three software programs for processing and analyzing rapid surveys. Persons are not sampled independently in cluster surveys, as is done in simple random sample surveys. Thus special software programs, presented in the workshop, are need to obtained the correct variance estimates for univariate, bivariate and multivariate analyses.

Workshop Outline

WEB ACCESS CODE (distributed to FETP on 7/7/07)

All of the workshop material was distributed via the web. A web-access code was distributed by FETP officials in Nonthaburi, Thailand to those who attended the workshop.

WORKSHOP MATERIAL (password is required)

Included in a restricted webpage is the workshop outline, assigned readings, and data sets for the Software Training Manual. Also included are black and white copies of the slides (6 per page). A hard copy of the material was distributed at the beginning of the workshop to all participants.

EPI INFO (WINDOWS) SOFTWARE

The Epi Info program is distributed for free by the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The program is useful for entering data and doing preliminary univariate and bivariate analyses of cluster survey data. To obtain the latest version of Epi Info (i.e., 3.4), please click here.

STATA SOFTWARE

For advanced (i.e., multivariate) analyses of two-stage cluster survey data, you will need special software that does not assume each subject is selected independently. To this end, the workshop participants are recommended to either use Stata 10 (available at FETP, Nonthaburi, Thailand) or obtain the perpetual (i.e., life-long) Intercooled Stata 10 software from Stata Corporation, including the Stata Release 10 Survey Data reference manual.

Stata Corportation

Description of Survey Data Reference Manual

CSURVEY SOFTWARE

The CSurvey program was created for rapid surveys to assist with sample size estimation, random number generation, and independent selection (with replacement) with probability proportionate to size (PPS) of first-stage clusters. The program is distributed free by the UCLA Department of Epidemiology. The new Windows program (version 2.0) and manual are available by clicking here.

If interested in arranging a similar one-week workshop in a developing country in 2008 or beyond for health professionals with prior MPH (or equivalent) education, please contact Professor Frerichs at: frerichs@ucla.edu.