PHPH 8721 - Epidemiologic Methods II

3 Credit Hours
Prerequisites: PHPH 7711;
Corequisites: PHPH 7027 or PHPH 9810.
Description
The methodological issues important to the design of epidemiologic studies of both infectious and noninfectious disease will be covered at an intermediate level. The material to be covered is intended to broaden and extend the student’s understanding of the elements of study design, data analysis, and inference in epidemiologic research, including issues related to causation, bias and confounding. The primary aims of the course are to provide a working knowledge of the fundamentals of epidemiology as well as to serve as a foundation for more advanced study of epidemiologic methods. The course will provide the student with a rigorous approach to critical reading of the medical literature. Each week articles reporting on research using varied designs and methods will be reviewed in order to illustrate the application of epidemiologic principles. By the end of the course, the student will be able to critique an article and identify its strengths and weaknesses.