ABSTRACT
There is a well-established body of research on the best practices for interviewing in criminal contexts. A smaller area of study, however, considers interviewing in an epidemiological setting. To stem the proliferation of infectious diseases, foodborne illnesses, and other threats to public health, epidemiologists conduct a form of interview – called contact tracing – to trace the origins of an outbreak or to identify other potentially infected individuals. Due to the high stakes of these types of investigations, it is critical that investigators elicit the most exhaustive reports possible from interviewees. This chapter reviews the existing literature on epidemiological interviewing. It then discusses how the Cognitive Interview (CI), an existing best-practices interviewing technique developed for use in criminal and human intelligence investigations, might increase the efficacy of epidemiological interviewing. Finally, it presents data from an initial study testing the effects of the CI compared to a standard contact tracing interview in a mock investigation of an outbreak of meningococcal meningitis. Implications of this initial data for epidemiological interviewing and directions for future research are discussed.
