There are many reasons which healthy authorities can investigate an outbreak but we can summarize them by these five objectives :
1. Control and prevention of the health problem
The most important public health reasons for investigating an outbreak are to help guide disease prevention and control strategies. These disease control efforts depend on several factors, including knowledge of the agent, the natural course of the outbreak, the usual transmission mechanism of the disease, and available control measures. On the other hand, if an outbreak appears to be almost over, the health agency may not need to implement control measures, but may be interested in identifying factors that contributed to the outbreak in order to develop strategies to prevent similar outbreaks in the future.
2. Opportunity to learn ( research opportunity.
Another important objective of many outbreak investigations is to
advance research. For most public health problems, health officials
cannot conduct randomized trials. its a natural phenomenon to learn from.
3. Public, political and legal concerns
Public, political, or legal concerns can be the driving force behind
the decision to conduct an investigation. A cluster of cancer cases
in a neighborhood may prompt concerned residents to advocate for
an investigation.
4. Program considerations Many health departments run programs to control and prevent communicable diseases such as influenza, tuberculosis, vaccine preventable diseases, and sexually transmitted diseases. sing the outbreak to evaluate program effectiveness can help program directors improve future directions and strategies
5. Training purposes
Investigating an outbreak requires a combination of diplomacy, logical thinking, problem-solving ability, quantitative skills, epidemiologic know-how, and judgment. These skills improve with practice and experience. T