Contents

PUBH 210 Epidemiology

Epidemiology introduces students to the principles and methods public health practitioners employ to determine transmission, distribution, occurrence, and detection of communicable and non-communicable diseases and injury within a population. Epidemiology provides evidence-based data which may point to an association between exposure and development of a disease, leading researchers to further investigate a cause-and-effect relationship through laboratory experiments (i.e. tobacco use and lung cancer). Public policy measures (i.e. smoking tobacco ban) and control of diseases (i.e. SARS) benefit from epidemiologic measures by providing population and individual risk estimates. Course content will include guest lecturers who employ epidemiologic principles in their public health work. Case studies of disease outbreaks will be highlighted (i.e. food-borne illness outbreak) to allow students to practice the methods used by epidemiologists.

Credits

3

Prerequisite

ENGL 121, and MATH 070 or higher or appropriate score on mathematics placement test

Hours Weekly

3 hours weekly

Course Objectives

  1. Describe the historical roots of epidemiologic thinking and their contribution to the evolution of the scientific method.
  2. Explain how ethical principles affect epidemiologic research.
  3. Use rates and proportions to express numerically the amount and distribution of health and non-health-related outcomes.
  4. Use the distribution of a health-related outcome to generate hypotheses that might provide an explanation.
  5. Explain basic statistical and epidemiologic concepts of estimation, inference, and adjustment to establish association.
  6. Explain how to use evidence of an association to make a judgment about whether an association is causal.
  7. Describe the basic epidemiologic study designs that are used to test hypotheses, identify associations, and establish causation.
  8. Describe the concepts of measurement of test performance and be able to apply the concepts of testing and screening in different settings.
  9. Apply the concepts of benefits, harms, and cost to public health decision making.
  10. Describe the broad applicability of epidemiologic methods to clinical and basic science as well as public policy.

Course Objectives

  1. Describe the historical roots of epidemiologic thinking and their contribution to the evolution of the scientific method.
  2. Explain how ethical principles affect epidemiologic research.
  3. Use rates and proportions to express numerically the amount and distribution of health and non-health-related outcomes.
  4. Use the distribution of a health-related outcome to generate hypotheses that might provide an explanation.
  5. Explain basic statistical and epidemiologic concepts of estimation, inference, and adjustment to establish association.
  6. Explain how to use evidence of an association to make a judgment about whether an association is causal.
  7. Describe the basic epidemiologic study designs that are used to test hypotheses, identify associations, and establish causation.
  8. Describe the concepts of measurement of test performance and be able to apply the concepts of testing and screening in different settings.
  9. Apply the concepts of benefits, harms, and cost to public health decision making.
  10. Describe the broad applicability of epidemiologic methods to clinical and basic science as well as public policy.