Course List

Assessment:

Continuous assessment  - 100% coursework

Assessment:

Continuous assessment - 100% coursework

Candidates will be exposed to the concept of measurement in epidemiology. The need for measurements to be valid and reliable will also be underscored. The use of samples to provide estimates for general populations will also be described along with the strengths and limitations of this approach. Fundamental epidemiological study designs and qualitative methodology will also be introduced, including discussion on the impact of effect size and measures of effect on study conclusions. The interpretation of the findings from studies including the role of chance, bias and confounding on these findings will be highlighted.

This course covers the fundamentals of quantitative data analysis; introducing students to classifying data and the related approaches to their description and comparison, probability methods and the role of chance in explaining statistical associations, methods used for the comparison of data from groups and the concepts of statistical significance and power. In addition, statistical methods to assess reliability and validity of measurements and regression analysis will be presented. Even though some theoretical information on statistical methods will be provided, focus will primarily be on the generation and the interpretation of related output.

In this course concepts of study design will be reviewed and students will be guided to make decisions about the best approach to prepare and organize a planned epidemiological research study. Through practice exercises, students will be required to design a study which will include the development of a proposal on a contemporary issue in epidemiology/public health. The proposal should include a project management plan that can be shared with stakeholders and other interested persons. The proposal should also provide evidence that students are aware of the ethical principles which guide researchers, especially those studying human subjects.

This course aims to describe and illustrate the methods available for identifying and reviewing quantitative and qualitative literature, providing students with a perspective on the development and uses of epidemiology through discussion of key epidemiological papers. It also allows the student to develop the skills to find, interpret and criticize information in the epidemiological literature as well as the competence to write scientific manuscripts in accordance with the requirements of journals and other publications.

This course is designed to give students the practical skills to create, check and manage a database suitable for epidemiological studies, as well as the experience in using Epinfo, Epidata, & other computer packages suitable for data collection. It will also cover issues of questionnaire design to facilitate their entry into a database of choice, simple analysis that can be performed for data checks and the options for data presentation.

The research project should explore an area of epidemiology which may be a specialized substantive area (e.g. cardiovascular disease, cancer etc.) or a methodological issue (e.g. study designs, estimating risk etc.) and should demonstrate: • Independent assessment of the subject area • Framing of an appropriate research question • Critical review of the literature on the research question • Competence in research methods, data analysis, and writing research reports • Ability to present findings in the approved academic style.