Conducting research studies is one of the competencies that epidemiology students should have after two years training as a crucial component to identifying and resolving public health problems. This case study is developed from a research study on assessing risks factors on tuberculosis treatment failure in Burkina Faso in 2009 to help students to cover these competences. This case study is ideal for reinforcing principles of conducting case-control studies for risk-factor assessment. The case study will help epidemiology learners outline a study proposal, reinforce knowledge about research design, data collection and data analysis issues, recognize the importance of ethics in research, and interpret results and use them to make conclusions and recommendations.
Keywords: Burkina Faso; Risk factor assessment; pulmonary tuberculosis; treatment failure; tuberculosis.