HNE-28803 Introduction Analytical Epidemiology and Public Health (DL)

Course

Credits 3.00

Language of instruction:

English

Assumed knowledge on:

Introduction descriptive epidemiology and public health

Continuation courses:

The DL-MSc-specializations have a fixed schedule during the pilot-phase

Contents:

Note: This course has a maximum number of participants. The deadline for registration is one week earlier than usual. See Academic Year.(http://www.wageningenur.nl/en/Education-Programmes/Current-Students/Agenda-Calendar-Academic-Year.htm) -> Registration for Courses.
Note: The period mentioned below is the period in which this course starts. For the exact academic weeks see the courseplanning on www.wur.eu/schedule.

In this course you will learn about the basic concepts, measures and study designs in analytical epidemiology and public health. Analytical studies investigate patterns, causes and effects of health and disease conditions in certain populations. These studies give insight in risk factors of diseases and can inform policy makers in the field of public health to design prevention strategies.
You will learn common measures as well as methods that support interpretation of study results, including their strengths and limitations. In addition, risk factors of major communicable and non-communicable diseases are discussed.

Learning outcomes:

After successful completion of this course students are expected to be able to:
- calculate basic measures used in epidemiology and public health, including various measures of association, including PR, IRR, IPR and OR, and (population) attributable risk and fraction ;
- understand basic study designs used in analytical epidemiology and public health and indicate the major (dis)advantages of the various study designs, including:
- ecological study;
- cross-sectional study;
- cohort study;
- case-control study;
- randomized controlled trial.
- understand selection bias, information bias, and confounding;
- explain the difference between internal and external validity of epidemiological findings;
- interpret precision measures;
- calculate various measures used for disease screening, including:
- sensitivity;
- specificity;
- diagnostic value.
- describe the main determinants of major communicable and non-communicable diseases:
- infectious diseases;
- diabetes mellitus;
- cancer;
- cardiovascular diseases;
- mental health disorders among elderly people;
- osteoporosis.

Activities:

Knowledge clips, self-study, online group discussions, calculation exercises, individual assignments.

Examination:

- final exam: remote proctored written exam with closed questions (60%);
- individual Poster presentation (25%);
- individual Glossary assignment report (15%);
All components need a minimum mark of 5.5 to pass.

Literature:

Webb C. & Bain P. (2010). Essential epidemiology: an introduction for students and health professionals. Cambridge University Press, 2nd revised edition.