How is Epi Info™ Used?

Epi Info™ is used worldwide for the rapid assessment of disease outbreaks; for the development of small to mid-sized disease surveillance systems; as ad hoc components integrated with other large scale or enterprise-wide public health information systems; and in the continuous education of public health professionals learning the science of epidemiology, tools, and techniques.

• The MakeView module of Epi Info™ allows users to create questionnaires and data entry forms called Views in Epi Info™. With MakeView, users place questions and data entry fields on one or many pages of a View and tailor the data entry process with conditional skip patterns, data validation, and custom calculations programmed by the user using MakeView's Check Code.
• The Enter module of Epi Info™ automatically creates the database from the questionnaire in MakeView. Users enter data, modify existing data, or search for records. With Enter, the Views are displayed and users perform the data entry while the Check Code validates the data or performs any automatic calculations that were specified in MakeView.
• The Analysis module is used to read and analyze data entered with the Enter module or data imported from 24 different data formats. Epidemiologic statistics, tables, graphs, and maps are produced with simple commands such as READ, FREQ, LIST, TABLES, GRAPH, and MAP. As each command is run, it is saved to the program editor where it can be customized and saved, shared, and used in the future as data are revised.
• The Epi Report module is a user-friendly tool to create professional custom reports that include results from the Analysis output. Epi Report can combine Analysis output with data from Enter as well as other sources such as Access or SQL Server. Reports can be saved as HTML files for easy distribution or web publishing.
• The Epi Map module displays geographic maps with data from Epi Info. Epi Map is built around the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) MapObjects software. Epi Map displays shapefiles containing the geographic boundaries layered with data results from the Analysis module.