Postgraduate Course: Epidemiology for Health Professionals (GMED11105)
Course Outline
| School | School of Clinical Sciences |
College | College of Medicine and Veterinary Medicine |
| Course type | Standard |
Availability | Available to all students |
| Credit level (Normal year taken) | SCQF Level 11 (Postgraduate) |
Credits | 20 |
| Home subject area | General Courses (Medicine) |
Other subject area | None |
| Course website |
None |
Taught in Gaelic? | No |
| Course description | This course introduces the fundamentals of epidemiology, providing students with an understanding of different epidemiological concepts and approaches and investigative techniques, and essential statistical skills, relating to global and local health problems. It focuses on areas such as how to understand study design and how to choose the right study design, interpreting confidence intervals, p-values, relative risks and odds ratios, and understanding how to measure health and disease. It explores issues such as bias and confounding. The course is flexible, designed to be engaging and informative to people at all levels, whether just beginning to work with epidemiology or for those who have a basic grasp but wish to extend their knowledge further. The course provides an excellent platform for all health professionals building skills in interpretation of data, research design and clinical practice. It is also valuable for policy makers, for those engaged in the health industry and those working in NGOs and international agencies and organisations. It is extremely useful for those working in the NHS or other health services throughout the world, or those who have a teaching responsibility to health students.
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Entry Requirements (not applicable to Visiting Students)
| Pre-requisites |
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Co-requisites | |
| Prohibited Combinations | |
Other requirements | None |
| Additional Costs | None |
Information for Visiting Students
| Pre-requisites | None |
| Displayed in Visiting Students Prospectus? | No |
Course Delivery Information
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| Delivery period: 2013/14 Flexible, Available to all students (SV1)
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Learn enabled: Yes |
Quota: None |
Web Timetable |
Web Timetable |
| Course Start Date |
05/08/2013 |
| Breakdown of Learning and Teaching activities (Further Info) |
Total Hours:
200
(
Online Activities 80,
Feedback/Feedforward Hours 10,
Formative Assessment Hours 20,
Summative Assessment Hours 90,
Directed Learning and Independent Learning Hours
0 )
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| Additional Notes |
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| Breakdown of Assessment Methods (Further Info) |
Written Exam
0 %,
Coursework
100 %,
Practical Exam
0 %
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| No Exam Information |
Summary of Intended Learning Outcomes
This course will equip participants with the skills needed to understand and critically appraise published epidemiological studies. By the end of the course, students should:
be familiar with basic epidemiological concepts such as incidence, prevalence, rates, standardisation, association and causality, approaches to sampling;
understand and be able to describe the following epidemiological study designs: ecological studies, cross-sectional studies, case-control studies, cohort studies, randomised controlled trials;
understand what is meant by and what the implications are of bias and confounding and the strategies available for avoiding these problems;
be able to critically appraise published studies
Be confident with basic statistical concepts.
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Assessment Information
Formal summative written assessment will constitute 60% of the student's grade. Online assessment will incorporate a variety of activities and will constitute 40% of the overall course grade and is taken to represent a formative assessment of learning throughout the programme
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Special Arrangements
This course will be taught entirely by distance learning, using the virtual learning environment WebCT as the delivery platform. Course materials are protected by secure username and password access that will be made available to registered users.
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Additional Information
| Academic description |
Not entered |
| Syllabus |
The course will concentrate on the following areas
Introduction to concepts of epidemiology and Critical Appraisal
Basic statistical concepts
Measuring health and disease
Ecological and cross-sectional Studies
Case-Control studies
Cohort studies
Measuring disease association
Randomised Control Trials
Sources of error in epidemiological studies
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| Transferable skills |
A 10 week interactive distance learning course. Those participating will receive online lecture materials and will be set assigned readings and specific online tasks/exercises relating to each week¿s topic. The total time required each week is approximately 15-20 hours. |
| Reading list |
Not entered |
| Study Abroad |
N/A |
| Study Pattern |
Not entered |
| Keywords | epidemiology, statistics, research design, critical appraisal |
Contacts
| Course organiser | Dr Liz Grant
Tel:
Email: Liz.Grant@ed.ac.uk |
Course secretary | Dr Ruth Mcquillan
Tel: (0131 6)50 9238
Email: Ruth.McQuillan@ed.ac.uk |
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