Question

OUt of about 1,000 students who ate their lunch at the buffet style dinning hall of a college, 100 had diarrhea about 5pm on the same day. As an epidemiologist how and what do you describe the person, time, and place variables/characteristics, of this epidemic? What type of clustering would this event have?

Answer 1

As an epidemiologist I would describe the person, time, and place variables/characteristics, of this epidemic by stating that this epidemic happened in;

Place; such and such geographic location

Time; 5 pm after eating lunch the same day (date)

Person; College students i.e. young people (if I know the age of each exact age has to be listed)

The time of clustering would this event have; the spatial-temporal cluster (Li, ‎2017) describing the space and time of the cluster.