Disease Detectives B/C

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fossilgirl13
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Re: Disease Detectives B/C

Post by fossilgirl13 »

I competed in Disease Detectives this year for Division B. We somehow managed 2nd place at Regionals because the test was very strange and easy. However, at States, we placed, well, not as high as we would have liked. I kind of like this event because I love working with diseases, but since we were not given a list of diseases (something like the list they give for ornithology or fossils), my partner and I were left in the dark, especially because we only have one coach who is rather incompetent. What I want to ask is, HOW DO YOU STUDY FOR DISEASE DETECTIVES?????
Thanks! :D
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ichaelm
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Re: Disease Detectives B/C

Post by ichaelm »

You don't need to know about specific diseases to know the fundamentals of epidemiology. Rather than focusing on characteristics of specific pathogens, focus on the broad science of epidemiology: the study of factors affecting the health and illness of populations (Wikipedia). The best resource to start with would be the CDC website. Learn how organizations like the CDC set up studies to observe those factors. Learn how epidemiologists use statistics to measure characteristics of diseases, risk factors, and treatments. Go through the CDC vocab list. If you really love epidemiology and have some extra cash (or nice parents), you can get this amazing book called "Modern Epidemiology." You can probably find it from amazon if you can't find it anywhere else. It is my bible! :D

http://www.cdc.gov/excite/disease_detectives/index.htm
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Re: Disease Detectives B/C

Post by fossilgirl13 »

Thanks!!!!! :D
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Re: Disease Detectives B/C

Post by French_Toast »

Also, remember. You're allowed a reference sheet. USE IT! For a lot of the year, it seemed like a bunch of teams in Ohio were trying to memorize everything. While yes, you should understand everything, and know a lot about epidemiology, it's invaluable to have a good reference sheet. Plus, making it helps you remember stuff anyways, because you remember putting it on there(well, it does for me anyways).

Also, pay attention to the news. We got a decent amount of stuff about H1N1 at invitationals a few times this year, and it was really nice to have background information on it. If there's a certain disease that's been really prevalent lately, there's a good chance it may show up on a test. National disasters are important too. On one of our tests, we had to tell why Haiti was worse off(disease wise) after their earthquake than Chile was. They provided us with some information, but we couldn't have gotten full points without knowing other stuff.

Hope this helps :)
2011 Events: Anatomy & Physiology, Disease Detectives, Ecology, Microbe Mission, Mission Possible, Optics, Birds, Protein Modeling, Technical Problem Solving
2012 Events: Anatomy & Physiology, Disease Detectives, Elastic Gliders, Trees, Microbe Mission, Protein Modeling, Remote Sensing
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