Epi Info™ User Guide

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Getting Started

Introduction to Epi Info 7

Epi Info 7 is a series of freely-distributable tools and utilities for Microsoft Windows for use by public health professionals to conduct outbreak investigations, manage databases for public health surveillance and other tasks, and general database and statistics applications. It enables physicians, epidemiologists, and other public health and medical officials to rapidly develop a questionnaire or form, customize the data entry process, and enter and analyze data.

Epi Info 7 is free of charge and can be downloaded from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website at https://www.cdc.gov/epiinfo.

Getting Started

Epi Info Tools

  • Form Designer – Create the questionnaire, form, or form to collect and view data.
  • Enter – Enter data and show existing records in the form.
  • Classic Analysis – Run statistical analyses, lists, tables, graphs, charts, etc.
  • Map – Create maps from Map Server or ShapeFiles.
  • Options – User custom configuration of Epi Info.

Additional Utilities

  • StatCalc – Epidemiologic calculators for statistics of summary data.

Form Designer

The Form Designer module can be accessed by clicking on the Create Forms button on the main menu or through the Tools/Create Forms option available from the top menu. The Form Designer module allows you to place prompts and data entry fields on one or more pages of a form. Since this process also defines the database(s) that are created, Form Designer can be regarded as the database design environment.
The Check Code editor within Form Designer customizes data entry providing many commands and functions. It enables operators to validate data as they are entered, auto-calculate fields, provide skip patterns, and deliver messages to the data entry user. For more information, see Introduction to Form Designer.

Enter

The Enter module can be accessed by clicking on the Enter Data button on the main menu or through the Tools/Enter Data option available from the top menu. Enter displays the form that was constructed in Form Designer. It can construct a data table, control the data entry process using the settings and check code specified in Form Designer, and provide a search function to locate records that match values specified for any combination of variables or fields on the form. In Enter, the cursor moves from field-to-field and page-to-page automatically saving data. Navigation buttons provide access to new, previous, next, first, and last records, and to their related tables. For more information, see Introduction to Enter.

Analysis

Analysis is the Epi Info 7 tool that allows you to manipulate, manage and analyze data. The Analysis module offers two interfaces; Classic and Visual Dashboard. Both of these interfaces can be accessed by clicking on the Classic or Visual Dashboard button on the main menu or through the Tools/Analyze Data option available from the top menu. These data may have been collected using Epi Info 7 or another type of database. Currently, Analysis can read data formats in MS Access, Excel, SQL server, and ASCII. It offers simple and intuitive tools to produce many forms of useful statistics and graphs for epidemiologists and other public health professionals. For more information, see Introduction to Analysis.

Map

The mapping component of Epi Info 7, Map, can be accessed by clicking on the Create Maps button on the main menu or through the Tools/Create Maps option located on the top menu. Epi Info 7 Map shows data from multiple data formats by relating data fields to shape files or through point locations containing X and Y coordinates in various symbols, colors, and sizes. Choropleth and Case-Based are supported.

Options

General

Sets background images, default database formats, and map service keys for mapping and geocoding.

Language

Translates completed Epi Info 7 programs into non-English languages by creating and importing translation definition files. Translation can be done without changing the names of files, and individual translations can be installed or uninstalled without affecting the main programs. Switching from one language to another can be done from the main menu.

Analysis

Displays the current values of Analysis option settings and provides various options that affect the performance and output of data in Analysis. Settings are used whenever the Classic Analysis module is used.

Plug-ins

All of the analysis in the Visual Dashboard module is done using gadgets, which always appear by default. Currently, the record count, data filtering, data recoding, and formatting gadgets are automatically incorporated in the Visual Dashboard module. Additional gadgets can be added with future releases of Epi Info 7.