Question

what is meant by a community trial as a type of experimental epidemiological study design? provide at least one relevant example.

Answer 1

Experimental epidemiology is an investigation through which various factors are determined causing a particular frequency and distribution in an economy.

It is of three types, one of them being community trial.

The community trial involves intervention on a community-wide basis. The distinction rests on whether or not the intervention is implemented separately for each individual. Whereas a vaccine is ordinarily administered singly to individual people, water fluoridation to prevent dental caries is ordinarily administered to individual water supplies. Consequently, water fluoridation was evaluated by community intervention trials in which entire communities were selected and water treatment was assigned on a community basis.

A few examples of preventives that might be implemented on a community-wide basis include fast-response emergency resuscitation programs and educational programs conducted using mass media. Some interventions are implemented most conveniently with groups of subjects smaller than entire communities. Dietary intervention may be made most conveniently by family or household; environmental interventions may affect an entire office, plant, or residential building. Protective sports equipment may have to be assigned to an entire team or league. Intervention groups may be army units, classrooms, or any other group whose members are exposed to the intervention.