Basic Epidemiology in Confinement Operations

Abstract

The program theme (What's the Present and Future of Bovine Practice?) provides a perfect opening for this paper because I believe the future is exciting for consultation practitioners who serve as advisors to owners of cattle kept in confinement. Because consultation practice is concerned with populations, the veterinary consultant should be versed in the fundamentals of population medicine. An intrinsic component of population medicine is epidemiology, that branch of medical science which records the distribution of disease in populations, attempts to explain the recorded distribution and then uses the knowledge thus obtained for control of diseases.

The epidemiologic method is that approach to medicine which determines the who, when and where of disease then uses this knowledge to explain "why." Epidemiologic methods are useful in investigation of specific outbreaks, in the design and evaluation of control programs and in determining the etiology of new or unknown diseases. Veterinary consultants to confinement operations deal with all these situations, but the most exciting is the determination of the cause, source and extent of specific outbreaks