Case study: Over 30 children younger than 3 years of age developed gastroenteritis after visiting a local water park. These cases represented 44% of the park visitors in this age group on the day in question. Older individuals were not affected. The causative agent was determined to be a member of the bacterial genus Shigella. The disease resulted from oral transmission to the children.

Based only on the information given, can you classify this outbreak as an epidemic? Why or why not? If you were an epidemiologist, how would you go about determining which pools in the water park were contaminated?

I want people to use the three types of epidemiological studies (descriptive, analytical and experimental) and demonstrate how to determine the cause of this event assuming you were the epidemiologist investigating the event. Also discuss the differences between the three types of epidemiological studies.