The course is an introduction to the scope of epidemiology and its basic concepts and methods.
Learning outcomes
After completing this course, the student will - understand the basic concepts, principles and methods of epidemiologic research - be able to assess population health and associated factors by calculating and interpreting various measures of occurrence and associations - recognize the main descriptive and analytic epidemiologic study designs (cross-sectional, cohort, case-control and clinical trial approaches) - be able to critically evaluate epidemiologic literature, including assessing the possibility of bias, confounding and other limitations in a study.
Contents
Introduction to the scope of epidemiology and its basic concepts and methods: measures of occurrence and associations, defining exposures and outcomes, validity of measurements, systematic error, random error and descriptive and analytic epidemiologic study designs, causality. This course is required for all international MHS students and is pre-requisite for Epidemiologic research methods (KATES034).