Answer :
Final answer:
A point source epi-curve is best represented using a line graph, which shows trends over time and is suitable for depicting the rise and fall in the number of cases during an outbreak.
Explanation:
The type of diagram used to represent a point source epi-curve is a line graph. Line graphs are designed to show trends over time by using one or more lines to signify how data points have changed. This is particularly useful in epidemiology where an epi-curve displays the onset of illness among cases in an outbreak.
In the case of a point source outbreak, where all the cases are exposed to the illness-causing factor at the same point in time, a line graph is handy to see the pattern of the outbreak; with the number of cases plotted over time, a sharp rise and fall in the number of cases can typically be observed.
Pie graphs, in contrast, show how an overall total is divided among various parts, usually as percentages of the whole, and hence are not suitable for representing epi-curves. Similarly, scatter plots can show a wide range of data points across two dimensions, which is not the desired representation for a point source epi-curve.
