From The Director

The Community Health Department needs to provide the public with accurate information about health issues. We can continue to provide accurate information by following good investigative practices. I have outlined good investigative practices below.

• Develop testable questions.
• Design investigations to answer the testable questions. The investigations may involve observations or experiments.
• Use technology to gather evidence when it is appropriate. For instance, lab equipment can be used to identify bacteria and viruses that cause illness and computers are used to analyze data.
• Propose explanations based on evidence.
• Revise questions or develop new questions based on evidence gathered.
• Consider alternative explanations proposed by other scientists.
• Test explanations through more investigation.
• Share the results of investigations with your colleagues and with the public