Course overview
This course introduces key approaches and concepts used in epidemiology to assess the health of populations. Principles of data collection will be explored and applied. Students will use statistical concepts and software to manipulate and analyse data to illustrate key epidemiological measures and concepts. By the end of the course students will be equipped to understand published epidemiological research, and gain practical skills in analysing and interpreting results. Examples will be drawn from a range of disciplines including Nutritional Health, Clinical Trials, Reproductive and Childhood Health, Addiction and Mental Health to illustrate the essential concepts.
Course learning outcomes
- Understand the role of epidemiology as a science
- Understand sources of epidemiological data
- Understand and calculate measures of disease occurrence and measures of effect
- Understand how a variety of experimental and observational study designs are used in epidemiological research
- Understand and identify sources of bias in epidemiological research
- Manipulate and describe data with simple summary statistics, tables and graphs, using statistical software where relevant
- Understand the principles of hypothesis testing and apply basic statistical techniques in statistical software
- Use epidemiological knowledge to critique the quality of evidence provided in published studies