Waterborne Disease Outbreak Investigation Toolkit
The Waterborne Disease Outbreak Investigation Toolkit is a guide to assist state and local health departments in conducting waterborne disease outbreak investigations. CDC developed this toolkit to help partners address the unique challenges they face when investigating waterborne disease outbreaks. Because of the numerous ways in which water impacts every person’s daily life, timely detection, response, and control of these outbreaks are crucial to protect public health.
Using experiences of epidemiologists at the state and local levels, this toolkit describes best practices in preparing for, identifying, and responding to a waterborne disease outbreak.
For outbreaks related to recreational water, visit CDC’s Recreational Water Illness Outbreak Response Tools page.
CDC is available to assist local, state, territorial, and tribal health departments—as well other countries’ ministries of health—with investigating and controlling waterborne disease outbreaks.
What’s Included?
- Water Systems
- Preparation for a Waterborne Disease Outbreak Investigation
- Waterborne Disease Outbreak Investigation Response
- Detect a Possible Outbreak
- Define and Find Cases
- Generate Hypotheses
- Test Hypotheses Using Epidemiology, Clinical Data, and Environmental Investigation
- Identify Source of Outbreak
- Control Outbreak Through Remediation and Outreach
- Decide Outbreak Is Over
- Prevent Future Outbreaks Through Summarizing, Interpreting, and Reporting Findings
- Prevention and Education Materials
- Interpreting Epidemic Curves and Confirming Diagnoses Appendices
- Investigating Harmful Algal Blooms Appendix [PDF – 48 pages]
How to Use the Toolkit
The toolkit content can be found by navigating through this website. It is also available as a PDF document [PDF – 36 pages].