The following is a list of some computer applications that can help a Community Medicine postgraduate in his/ her day to day work. For effective use of these softwares one has to first get acquainted with its use. They are equipped with the ability to perform a variety of functions. Most of these softwares also provide a User Guide/ Tutorial along with them to make it easy for users. Majority of the computer applications enlisted here are available Free of Charge for download from their respective websites.
1. EpiInfo
This Freeware available from Center for Disease Control, Atlanta, US, this a 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.
2. OpenEpi
OpenEpi is a Freeware that provides statistics for counts and person-time rates in descriptive and analytic studies, stratified analysis with exact confidence limits, matched pair analysis, sample size and power calculations, random numbers, chi-square for dose-response trend, sensitivity, specificity and other evaluation statistics, R x C tables, and links to other useful sites.
3. Endnote
Endnote is one of the popular citation managers specifically useful for sorting and managing references citations while preparing manuscripts for research articles.
This is a nutrition calculator with advantage that it uses food items commonly used in Indian diet and hence making it more relevant for use by Indian Students. Please refer to the link for the price.
5. Active Epi
This is a series of interactive learning modules on Epidemiology. It is available on a CD.
6. Weft QDA
This is a free-ware for analysis of the data generated through Qualitative research. There are other paid softwares also available which can perform higher functions for Qualitative data analysis, but this provides enough functions for beginners.
It is free transcription software. Useful for preparing scripts in Qualitative Data Analysis. Works as an add-on tool with any QDA softwares.
8. Gap minder
A brainchild of a Swedish professor of International Health, this application makes the presentation of data more visually appealing since it uses animated graphics. It is available for free and bears a huge potential for use among public health professionals in developing countries for making presentations using local data for teaching, training and advocacy purpose.
9. WHONET
WHONET is free Windows-based database software developed for the management and analysis of microbiology laboratory data with a special focus on the analysis of antimicrobial susceptibility test results. This free software is a very good help for analysis of AMR in hospital settings.
10. Microsoft Onenote
Microsoft OneNote is an easy-to-use note-taking and information-management program where one can capture ideas and information in electronic form. It can gather users' notes (handwritten or typed), drawings, screen clippings, and audio commentaries and share them with other users of Microsoft OneNote over the Internet OneNote notebooks are designed for collecting, organizing, and sharing possibly unpolished materials. This is available in Microsoft Office package but not many are actually aware about the use.
11. Modified Prasad’s Classification Calculator
Modified Prasad’s Classification using All India Consumer Price Index (AICPI) for Industrial Workers (IW) is the most commonly used Socio-Economic Classification among students pursuing their post graduation in different branches of Medical Science. It classifies the study subjects in different socio-economic class on the basis of per capita monthly income. But because, AICPI keeps on changing every month, one has to go to the website of Ministry of Labor of India every time (or obtain the latest AICPI from financial newspapers) & has to calculate the same again to get the Latest Socio Economic Classification. An excel sheet has been prepared with inbuilt formulae (using Multiplication Factor as calculated above) which will directly give the whole latest Modified Prasad’s Classification on just entering the latest AICPI from the website of Ministry of Labor of India.
Prepared by : Dr Devang Jariwala, Resident Doctor, Department of Preventive & Social Medicine, Government Medical College Surat & Dr Pradeep Kumar, Professor & Head, Department of Preventive & Social Medicine, GMERS Medical College Sola, Ahmedabad