Question

My question is what's the measure that is used in this study and how the incidence rate indicator work?
The incidence of Covid-19 positive students in the Culinary Department (50 students) at a College over a semester (17 weeks). The students will be given a rapid saliva test (results within 4 hours) daily to determine positive cases. The total positive cases (ex: 12) will be divided by the total population in the semester (50) to determine the incidence rate per semester (ex: 12/50 = 0.24/person-semester) or incidence rate per week (ex: 0.24/17 = 0.01/person-week).

Answer 1

Incidence is measure of probability of occurance of a health issue in a specific population over a period of time.

Incident rate = no. Of people suffering from specific medical condition divided by total population.

Here in the above case we are analysing incidence of covid cases in a semester . Covid have an incubation period of aprrox 1 week and here number cases are not that many so it is not appropriate to calculate incidence rate by per person per week.

Incidence per person in semester is a better way to calculate the incidence rate.

Hope it helps. All the best ?