METHODS OF COLLECTION OF DATA WITH DIFFERENT TOOLS AND SAMPLING TECHNIQUES

The study or characteristics (frequency and or /distribution of disease or production level) of the population and the effects of various factors on population characteristics are the major areas of the interest in epidemiology. The study of characters of population can be done by two ways: 1. Study of all animals in a population for presence or absence of characteristic. This is called as Census, but this method is very tedious and requires lot of time and man power. 2. The second method is studying a sample for particular characteristic or attributes and is called Sampling. The sample which represents the population characteristics, and the characteristics after analyse, being applied to whole population called as sampling techniques. This is very advantageous because very few animals from population are selected by any one of the method of sampling techniques and the characteristics which is observed in this sample. A sample which is used should be a true representative of population and its attributes; otherwise the result obtained from the sampling techniques cannot be applied to the whole population. Important terms which commonly used in sampling technique are as followsSample- The few animal drawn from whole population and are the representative of whole population. The sample may be an individual animal or group of animal. Sample Unit- The particulars/number of sample included in the sample size is called sample unit. The sample unit may be individual animal, or village, or district etc included in the study. Sample size- The total number of sample unit included in the study is called sample size. The sample size is represented by sample n. Sample frame- Sample unit arranged systematically in a tabular form or the list of all sample units in the sampled population. Target Population- The area of animal population on which the epidemiological studies are undertaken is referred as Target Population and this is represented by N. Sampling is usually carried out in the following two situations: A) Descriptive Studies (Survey) B) Analytical Studies A) DESCRIPTIVE STUDIES: This is also called Survey. These are carried out when the investigator is interested in studying the characteristic of population. Following studies are examples of descriptive study for which survey is essential.

i) Disease frequency (rate) study ii) Distribution of the disease iii) Production parameters profile iv) Reproductive efficiency of breeding performance, i.e. age at maturity, dry period, gestation period etc. iv) Frequency of an animal with an attribute (factor). e.g. Number of dogs vaccinated against distemper/rabies. B) ANALYTICAL STUDIES: These studies area carried out to assess the specific association of the factor with an outcome or occurrence of a disease. Following are the type of analytical study. i) Effect of the machine milking on Mastitis ii) Effect of the season on Pneumonia in Sheep iii) Effect of the ventilation on respiratory diseases of Pig/Poultry iv) Colour of the skin of animal and occurrence of skin cancer v) Effect of breed on occurrence of milk fever Importance of Sampling Technique: The validity of the entire study is based on how sound the sampling techniques have been followed. Sampling will decide the precision, extent of extrapolation and level of confidence of the observations or association. Following are the example of wrong sampling:1) An investigator has studied number of animals brought to the hospital for vaccination. This data is not representative sample of entire city/village because the animals brought to the hospital are not the representative sample. 2) An investigator studied the prevalence of Haemorrhagic Septicaemia (H.S.) in the cattle of Maharastra by collecting the data from two district polyclinics only. The data are not representative of whole of Maharastra and hence no valid conclusion could be drawn. 3) General rules to follow while sampling:1. Objective of the study should be clear and well defined or concisely. 2. Unit of concern for the study should be clearly mentioned. e.g. individual animals, herd or flocks. 3. Target Population (Sampling frame) of the sample should be clearly spelt. For example the investigator should bear in mind the extent of extrapolation, e.g. PPR in goats of Parbhani district, Subclinical Mastitis in cows of Marathwada region, Bovine Tuberculosis in Maharastra, Brucellosis in Veterinarians in India. 4. The criteria for identification/diagnosis should be clearly defined for each study. This definition however, may vary from investigator to investigator. e.g. Clinical Mastitis in a cow, when SCC is more than 3,00,000 per ml of milk.

5. Precision of the results: Precision of the study has to be decided before the samples are drawn. This is also called level of confidence, which could be 99%, 95% or 90% or even lower. Remember that when the confidence level is kept high, the number of subjects sampled will also be higher. 6. Consideration of cost: Most of the studies are required to be completed within a limited budget, therefore balance has to be achieved so that optimum precision and confidence level is achieved within the budgetary constraints. DATA COLLECTION METHODS The methods of data collection should be uniform and pre-decided and clearly spelt. For example, if an investigator is interested in studying the incidence of abortion in a herd, the data can be collected by the following methods: i) Personal interview (question): Personal interviews or questionnaires are generally carried out in survey to extract the data from a group of respondents. This is known as collecting primary data. Simple questions in the local language should be asked and it should be uniform to all the animal owners/farmers/vets. Mail Questionnaires: In this the required information in the form of small objective type questions are sent by mail to the selected livestock owners or farmers and the replies then is analyzed. But compliance in this method is lower and may also influence the results (bias). Data from records or history sheets: In this method the data can be obtained from visit to the different farms take the history sheet or record of animal. Access to this kind of data is available through electronic media also. e.g. Time Web. Special Screening/diagnostic tests: This is useful for diagnosis of subclinical diseases in farm; such as Brucella- Rose Bengal test, TB- Tuberculin test, Glanders- Mallein test, CMT- Mastitis.

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Types of Sampling techniques: There are two types of sampling techniques 1. Non-probability sampling/ Non-Random sampling 2. Probability sampling/ Random sampling 1. Non-Probability Sampling (Non-Random Sampling): Non-Probability Sampling is a collection of methods that do not rely on formal random techniques

to identify the units to be included in the sample. In this method each sample unit is not having any opportunities to be selected in sample. Following are the types of Non-Random sampling methods i) Judgement Sampling: In this method animals are selected depending on the judgement of the investigator or representative units of the population are selected by the investigator. ii) Convenient Sampling: In this method sample unit (subjects) will be selected as it is easy and convenient. e.g. clinical trial of a drug in animals brought to my hospital, local herds, local kennels, student volunteers, etc. iii) Purposive Sampling: The subjects are selected with a purpose or where the history of exposure to a factor is known. or Selection of units is based on known exposure or disease status e.g. effect of FMD on milk production (Only FMD animals will be sampled). 2. Probability Sampling (Random Sampling): The principle of the random sampling is that all the units within a sampling frame will have an equal opportunity to be included in the study. There are different types of random sampling. a) Simple Random Sampling: In simple random sampling, one selects a fixed percentage of the population using a formal random process. This is done by employing random processes, e.g. flipping of a coin, drawing numbers from a box, random number generation or random number tables. e.g. To find out an average age of students studying in seventh semester. Here the sampling frame will be all the 40 students in the class. Their age is known. We will prepare chits of papers for each student with his/her name and his/her age and this will be spread on the table. In case20% of the population is to be sampled, 8 chits will be drawn and their average will be calculated. b) Systemic Random Sampling: In this, sampling units are selected from a sample frame at regular interval (k), which can be either fixed before sampling or selected depending on formal random basis. Example: There are 2000 cows in a farm out of 180 cows are to be randomly selected for estimation of blood glucose levels. Here k=N/n (where N is population frame and n is the number of animals to be sampled).

k=2000/180, the integer nearest to N/n =11, therefore k=11. If N/k is not an integer (2000/11) then select any random number between 1 to 2000 (say 1600 in this case), and this is to be divided by k; 1600/11, the reminder is 5, so here the sampling will be 5, 16, 27...... However, numbers from 1 to 4 are not considered in this case. Hence, randomly select any number between 1 to 4; say 3. Therefore our selection numbers will be 3, 14, 25, 36. c) Stratified Random Sampling: In Stratified random sampling the population (sample frame) is first divided into strata based on factors which are known to influence the characteristics of the estimates and then simple or systemic random sampling can be applied to each strata. e.g. The investigators wants to study prevalence of hypophosphatemia in cows of Aurangabad district. It is known fact that the cows supplemented with mineral mixture are less prone to the disease than those not receiving mineral mixture in the feed. Therefore, it will be appropriate if the sampling frame first divided into two strata a) Cows supplemented with mineral mixture. b) Cows not supplemented with mineral mixture. Then the cows within the strata can be further stratified (on the basis of taluka, age geographical area) and then sampled. d) Cluster Random Sampling: In cluster sampling, initial sampling unit (Cluster) is more than the unit of concern (individual animal). The cluster (herd, pen, flock, taluka, village) could be natural or artificial. Here all elements from each selected cluster can be included in the sample (called one-stage cluster), or a sub-selection within a selected cluster can be made (called two-stage cluster sampling). However when herd, flock, pen etc., may be unit of concern then these should not be considered as cluster. Multistage Random Sampling: This is similar to cluster sampling but the sampling takes place at all the subsequent stages. e.g. An investigator is interested in knowing the percentage of flocks in Parbhani district positive for Infectious hydropericarditis virus antibodies. Here the sampling strategy will be: 1st Stage: There are 10 talukas in Parbhani district, and 5 will be selected randomly.

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2nd Stage: In each of the 5 talukas there are 150 villages, and 20 villages will be selected randomly from each taluka. 3rd Stage: Farms in villages 10 farms from each village will be randomly selected. 4th Stage: 10% of the birds from each farm will be bled for serum separation. This sampling technique is practically advantageous as there is flexibility and cost consideration can be built up in the formula. The disadvantage is that more number of animals are required to be sampled.