A nurse is investigating an outbreak of a gastrointestinal illness from a food-borne pathogen. Which of the following terms is being applied?
a. Attack rate
b. Point epidemic
c. Secular trend
d. Event-related cluster
ANS: B
One temporal and spatial pattern of disease distribution is the point epidemic. A point epidemic is most clearly seen when the frequency of cases is plotted against time. The sharp peak charac-teristic of such graphs indicates a concentration of cases in some short interval of time. Attack rate is defined as the proportion of persons who are exposed to an agent and develop the disease. Secular trends are long-term patterns of morbidity or mortality rates. Event-related clusters are patterns in which time is not measured from fixed dates on the calendar but from the point of some exposure or event, presumably experienced in common by affected persons, although not occurring at the same time.
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