Applied Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases in Australia

Abstract

This thesis is a body of work that was completed whilst undertaking the Master of Applied Epidemiology (MAE) program at the Australian National University from February 2019 to November 2020. During this time, I was placed at the Department of Health, Office of Health Protection, in the Health Emergency Management Branch (HEMB). I also spent 8 weeks with the Victorian Government Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) to fulfil the outbreak investigation requirement. I discuss my experiences as a MAE Scholar and my involvement in the day-to-day activities in the work placements.

I completed four key projects to meet the core competencies of field epidemiology: - Data analysis: Cholera risk in Australian returned travellers: An analysis of notifications to the National Notifiable Diseases Surveillance System (NNDSS) from 1991- 2018 - Outbreak investigation: Measles outbreak in seasonal horticultural workers in regional Victoria, Australia, 2019 - Public health surveillance: Establishing a 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) surveillance system in Victoria for travellers returning from Wuhan, Hubei Province in China, 2020 - Epidemiological study: Do symptoms predict COVID-19 infection? A case-control study, Australia, 2020

I presented findings for the cholera data analysis study at the Communicable Diseases Control conference in 2019, and prepared a manuscript for the measles outbreak chapter intended for submission to a scientific journal. As part of the MAE teaching requirements, I prepared a lessons from the field exercise on accessing publicly available data sources and data visualisation, and conducted a group teaching session for the 2020 MAE cohort on introduction to data linkage.

In summary, this thesis describes my experiences in the MAE program and the projects I completed during my placement with HEMB and secondment to DHHS, all of which demonstrates the core competencies in field epidemiology.