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Figure 1 | BMC Public Health

Figure 1

From: Using participatory epidemiology to assess factors contributing to common enteric pathogens in Ontario: results from a workshop held at the Ontario Veterinary College, University of Guelph, Ontario

Figure 1

Participatory epidemiology tools and techniques. A. This is an example of a proportional piling activity completed during a focus group. Informants were asked to identify the degree of importance for identified enteric pathogens using 100 beans as counters. Informants attributed 16, 20, 30, 22, and 12 beans to Salmonella, Campylobacter, E. coli, Listeria, and Giardia respectively. A higher bean count represents a pathogen that was considered more important than another. In this example, E. coli was considered the most important. B. This is an example of a matrix activity completed during a focus group. Informants were asked to attribute beans to identify contributing factors associated with different ethnicities. Ethnicities (located at top of columns) included South (SE) Asian, Middle Eastern, Chinese (Chin), First Nations (FN), and mixed ethnicities (Heinz 57). Factors (located at left of rows) included personal hygiene, food preparation, industry, safe water, and travel. A higher bean count represents a contributing factor or key theme that was considered as the most concerning for a particular ethnicity. In this example, the most concerning factor for South Asian was travel, for Middle Eastern was food preparation, for Chinese was industry (closely followed by travel), for First Nations was safe water, and for mixed ethnicity was food preparation and industry (closely followed by travel and safe water). C. This is an example of a timeline activity completed during a focus group. Informants were asked to draw past, present, and future incidence trends for identified important enteric pathogens. From top to bottom, trend lines were predicted for Campylobacter, Salmonella, Giardia, E. coli, and Listeria respectively.

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