The study will focus entirely on children under the age of 36 months. Because OM prevalence changes drastically throughout that time period, the study will be divided into three different age groups in children, those under 12 months of age, those between 12 and 24 months, and those between 24 and 36 months.

In order to correctly present the study proposal, it is important to first understand exactly what the exposures and outcomes are. In a relationship where one type of event is characteristic to another, the exposure is the variable that affects the outcome. To further explain, the exposure is usually associated with an environmental factor or lifestyle habit, often termed a ‘risk factor’. The outcome is the prevalence or presence of a disease or health related event. In this study focusing on the relationship between daycare attendance and recurring episodes of OM, the exposure is daycare attendance and the outcome is the prevalence of OM. ??

Data will be collected through the use of surveys, with the goal of obtaining adequate information in three areas of interest. The first and second parts include whether or not the children attended daycare, and when they did attend. The third part is a follow-up to those confirming daycare attendance: the type of daycare. Each survey will therefore ask questions about these three areas. The first question would be worded: “Did your child attend any daycare: under 12 months of age? Between 12 and 24 months of age? Between 24 and 36 months of age?” Should ‘yes’ be the answer to any of the questions, the guardian would be further asked to reveal the type of daycare (either family daycare homes or daycare centers)

The surveys will be conducted with help from our available information. We have access to date of diagnoses, type of treatment, and guardian contact information. Focusing primarily on contact information for data collection purposes, the data collector would first contact guardians to explain the study and receive permission to gather more statistics. ----At this point, it is also important to emphasize that the overall purpose of this study is to develop more knowledge about a common children’s disease in hopes of spreading awareness and preventing it in the future. –-(include this or not?)

After data collection, analysis would require a table consisting of 3 separated age groups, daycare attendance, and type of daycare.
Example Table:

As with most cross-sectional studies, the appropriate data analysis for this study would include the calculation of a risk ratio. By labeling children with daycare attendance as the exposed group and children without daycare attendance as the unexposed group, the risk ratio can be calculated by dividing the incidence of disease in the exposed by the incidence of disease in those who are unexposed. Because there are three different age groups, there will be three different risk ratios. From there, one can observe not only the comparison between daycare attendance and no daycare attendance, but also if age plays a factor in the relationship. There is also the option of simply combining all the data and calculating a broader risk ratio representing the entire sample size as one.