Operational Research during the Ebola Emergency

Details

• Alternative Title:
  Emerg Infect Dis
• Personal Author:
  Fitzpatrick, Gabriel ; Decroo, Tom ; Draguez, Bertrand ; Crestani, Rosa ; Ronsse, Axelle ; Van den Bergh, Rafael ; Van Herp, Michel
• Description:
  Operational research aims to identify interventions, strategies, or tools that can enhance the quality, effectiveness, or coverage of programs where the research is taking place. Médecins Sans Frontières admitted ≈5,200 patients with confirmed Ebola virus disease during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and from the beginning nested operational research within its emergency response. This research covered critical areas, such as understanding how the virus spreads, clinical trials, community perceptions, challenges within Ebola treatment centers, and negative effects on non-Ebola healthcare. Importantly, operational research questions were decided to a large extent by returning volunteers who had first-hand knowledge of the immediate issues facing teams in the field. Such a method is appropriate for an emergency medical organization. Many challenges were also identified while carrying out operational research across 3 different countries, including the basic need for collecting data in standardized format to enable comparison of findings among treatment centers.
• Subjects:
  Delivery Of Health Care Disease Outbreaks Ebolavirus Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola Humans Operations Research Program Evaluation
• Source:
  Emerg Infect Dis. 23(7):1057-1062.
• Pubmed ID:
  28628463
• Pubmed Central ID:
  PMC5512485
• Document Type:
  Journal Article
• Name as Subject:
  Médecins sans frontières (Association) ; Médecins sans frontières (Association)
• Place as Subject:
  Africa, Western
• Volume:
  23
• Issue:
  7
• Collection(s):
  Emerging Infectious Diseases
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:a8109d300a9458246922404b1a6933891406b417800469e46ed21bf3bfd3091a
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/46751/cdc_46751_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 772.38 KB ]