Courses
The course descriptions below are correct to the best of our knowledge as of June 2010. Instructors reserve the right to update and/or otherwise alter course descriptions as necessary after publication. The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular semester. The Course Rotation Guide lists the expected semester a course will be taught. Paper copies are also available in the BUSPH Registrar’s office. Please refer to the published schedule of classes for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.
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SPH EP 752: Cancer Epidemiology
This course provides an overview of the important concepts fundamental to the understanding, design, and conduct of cancer epidemiology studies. The course commences with the descriptive epidemiology of cancer, including time trends in incidence and mortality, and geographic and demographic variation in cancer rates. An overview of the biology of cancer, and a review of the major epidemiologic concepts critical to cancer epidemiology is covered. The descriptive and analytic epidemiology of major cancer sites, including breast, lung, colon, prostate, cervix and melanoma, is discussed, as well as major risk factors for cancer, including tobacco, nutrition, infections, and environmental exposures. The course format consists of a series of lectures by faculty and guests, discussion sessions, and directed readings from the current literature. Students are required to pursue a cancer-related topic of their choosing in depth, developing a proposal for an epidemiologic study that will further current knowledge based on their literature review of the topic. -
SPH EP 753: Cancer Prevention as a Public Health Problem
By means of lectures, seminars, and student presentations, this course reviews multidisciplinary approaches to the application of cancer prevention knowledge to individuals and communities. Students analyze and present case examples of approaches to the control of a given cancer or a given carcinogen. -
SPH EP 755: Infectious Disease Epidemiology
This course presents the methods of studying common infectious diseases in populations. It includes the determinants of these diseases, their distribution within populations, and their control. There are lecture presentations regarding specific diseases and agents. Implications for social policy and preventive approaches are discussed. Analysis of actual infectious disease outbreaks with classroom discussion of prepared homework is included. -
SPH EP 758: Nutritional Epidemiology
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the discipline of nutritional epidemiology. In the class, we will focus on methodological issues relating to design, dietary assessment, and data analysis of studies on diet and disease. We will also review some of the literature relating nutrition to certain disease states, including coronary heart disease and cancer, in which we highlight methodological issues and interpretation of findings in nutritional epidemiologic research. Students completing this course will understand the basic principles of nutritional epidemiology and will be able to apply them in reading the literature and participating in nutrition research projects. This is a small, intermediate-level epidemiology class, which combines lectures with in-class discussion of classic and cutting-edge research articles. In addition, one-on-one meetings are set up with students throughout the semester to provide focused attention and facilitate mastery of the material. -
SPH EP 759: Reproductive Epidemiology
This course surveys current knowledge concerning the epidemiology of reproductive heath across the lifespan. Topics vary from year to year but may include infertility, miscarriage, birth defects, menopause, uterine fibroids, gynecologic cancers, and male reproductive health. The course emphasizes epidemiologic methods and gives the student experience in the critical review and design of epidemiologic studies in this area. -
SPH EP 762: Clinical Epidemiology
This course introduces students to topics and methods in clinical epidemiology. Covered topics include those traditionally regarded within the purview of clinical epidemiology such as the evaluation of diagnostic tests (sensitivity, specificity, predictive value, and ROC curves), decision analysis, cost effectiveness analysis, outcomes assessment, and meta-analysis. At the conclusion of the course students will understand concepts of clinical epidemiology, know the indications for using each clinical epidemiology method, and be prepared to critically evaluate studies that employ these methods. Since this course uses numerous clinical examples, it is not recommended for those with no clinical experience. -
SPH EP 763: Genetic Epidemiology
This course familiarizes students with general methods and principles of genetic epidemiology. Topics include basic human genetics, population genetics, pedigree analysis, linkage analysis in humans, twin studies, effects of inbreeding, genetics of common diseases, genetic association studies, and forensic genetics. The course emphasizes practical applications of existing methods to designing and executing genetic studies and to genetic counseling. This involves some critical evaluation of the scientific literature. -
SPH EP 764: The Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS in the Developed and Developing World
This course is designed to introduce students to an important and growing field - the epidemiology of AIDS. It is designed for those students who have a keen interest in HIV/AIDS in both the developed and developing world. This course will survey state-of-the art knowledge of the epidemiology of HIV and will emphasize epidemiologic principles and methods including: estimation of the incidence of HIV infection and AIDS, study design, and sources of bias. It will also give the student experience in the critical review of epidemiologic studies in this area. -
SPH EP 765: Epidemiology of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases
This course takes a practical approach to current issues in the prevention and control of vaccine-preventable diseases. Topics include vaccine testing, efficacy measurement, impact, safety, adverse reactions, herd effects, delivery programs, and public acceptability. Specific diseases are discussed in the context of concepts that they illustrate. The focus is on current developments, outbreaks, controversies, and problems, and on epidemiologic methods and policy considerations in addressing them. -
SPH EP 771: Topics in Epidemiology
Please see course registration packet on SPH web site for course description for semester. Classes, topics, and credits may vary per semester. -
SPH EP 775: Social Epidemiology
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the major social variables that affect population health, including socio-economic status, race/ethnicity, gender, neighborhood environment, corporate practices, and the criminal justice system. This course will cover the theoretical underpinnings of each construct, and will provide students with an in-depth discussion of the empirical research linking each to population health. Methods are introduced to operationalize each construct for the purpose of empirical application in epidemiology research. -
SPH EP 780: Epidemiology of Diabetes and Its Complications
This course provides an overview of the epidemiology of diabetes and its complications. The first part of the course will be dedicated to the descriptive epidemiology, environmental and genetic risk factors, and prevention of type 1 and type 2 diabetes. The second part of the course will similarly explore complications of diabetes including cardiovascular disease, eye complications, and kidney disease. Class will incorporate lecture and the discussion of classic and current research in the field. -
SPH EP 784: The Epidemiology of Tuberculosis in the Developed and Developing World
This course is designed for those students who have an interest in both tuberculosis and epidemiologic methods. This course will survey both the history of this storied disease as well as state of the art knowledge of the epidemiology of tuberculosis (including molecular techniques) and will emphasize epidemiologic principles and methods including: estimation of the incidence of primary tuberculosis, estimation of the incidence of reactivation tuberculosis, study design, and sources of bias. The course will also give the student practice and feedback in the critical review of epidemiologic studies in this area. -
SPH EP 813: Intermediate Epidemiology
The purpose of this course is to further develop the methodologic concepts underlying the science of epidemiology. The material 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 working knowledge of the fundamentals of epidemiology as well as to serve as a foundation for more advanced study of epidemiologic methods. The course consists of lectures and workshop sessions. The workshop sessions are designed to reinforce the concepts/topics covered in the lectures. -
SPH EP 817: A Guided Epidemiology Study
This is an upper-level , hands-on seminar course, which teaches a small group of students how to develop and conduct a hypothesis-based study, using datasets that are currently available to the instructors. Through a combination of workshops, written assignments, and oral presentations, students develop hypotheses, conduct literature reviews, perform data analyses, and write each section of a manuscript. The final project requires the student to integrate all sections into a complete paper for journal submission. This course prepares students to write thesis proposals and manuscripts. -
SPH EP 830: Drug Epidemiology
This course (formerly EP756) focuses on the research methods particular to the field of drug epidemiology. This course covers post-marketing drug safety research methods using observational data to detect adverse reactions of drugs as used in daily practice; it does not cover clinical trials. Students achieve sufficient familiarity with the field to be able to design an appropriate drug epidemiology study using the data resources referred to during the course. The role of spontaneous reporting of adverse reactions, the FDA, the drug industry, and academia are discussed. The class includes lectures by experts working in the field, critiques of literature, a project where students design a study to answer a question in the field of pharmacoepidemiology and a written final exam. -
SPH EP 854: Modern Epidemiology
This course covers the theory and application of key principles and methods of epidemiologic research in depth. The topics include causal models, confounding, randomization, interaction, statistical analysis and inference, and causal inference. Special emphasis is given to the meaning and interpretation of p-values, confidence intervals, and likelihoods. Alternative approaches are identified for selecting and interpreting measures of disease frequency and measures of effect. Guidance is offered for determining objectives and strategies in study design and analysis, especially for case-control research. Methods are presented for the assessment and control of confounding, misclassification bias, and selection bias. Strengths and weaknesses of standardization, pooling, modeling, and exposure-response analysis are reviewed. -
SPH EP 855: Advanced Epidemiology Seminar: Issues in Study Design
This course is structured around reading and discussing both historical and current methodological papers. The first section of the course focuses on papers by early theoreticians and methodologists. The second section focuses on contemporary methodologic questions. Substantive areas may evolve and vary over time. Recent topics have included case-control studies, study efficiency, measures of effect, exposure misclassification, sensitivity analysis, casual diagrams, and direct and indirect effects. -
SPH EP 856: Selected Topics in Epidemiologic Methods
Course focuses on advanced design and analysis topics. Three to five topics will be covered from the following list of topics: Case-crossover / case-specular design and analysis; G-estimation / IPTW / marginal structural models / nested marginal structural models; Bias analysis; Propensity scores / disease scores / other scoring; Instrumental variables and aggregate analysis; Hierarchical modeling; Bayesian analysis; Missing data methods; Longitudinal data analysis. For each topic, there will be a week of reading and review on the theory, a week introducing an applied example, followed by a week of group or individual work during which the example problem will be solved by conventional and then also the advanced method. We will reconvene for a last week when the results of the analytic work will be reviewed and compared across groups and individuals. -
SPH EP 857: Design and Conduct of Cohort Studies
This is a third-level epidemiologic methods course intended for advanced Masters and Doctoral students who desire to build depth and nuance in their understanding of cohort study design and conduct. The course will build on classic and state-of-the-art papers which focus in depth on various topics such as selection of appropriate measure of excess risk and intermediate endpoints (theory and practice). For each topic, methodologic readings will be linked back to concrete examples of cohort study design, with special emphasis on practical aspects of study conduct.
Note that this information may change at any time.
