Field work is of fundamental importance for information regarding so-called tropical diseases. It enables more precise establishment of the prevalence of endemic diseases and of its social and economic consequences, allows study of the many clinical variants of diseases, of the epidemiological factors which trigger and maintain a certain morbid condition in the field environment where it occurs, thus enabling the investigation of the causal agent, of the diverse reservoirs and vectors in the natural conditions of transmission. This article approaches relevant structural, logistic and operational objectives and aspects in the performance of this type of investigation.
Tropical diseases; Field assays; Clinical trials; Epidemiology