Epidemiology I (SVUEK_063)
About Study Course
Objective
To strengthen knowledge in basic epidemiology allowing to proceed with studying more advanced theoretical concepts and application of more sophisticated epidemiological methods in the course "Epidemiology II".
Prerequisites
Public health, statistics, basic epidemiology – according to the content of bachelor study programmes in Health Care specialties.
Learning outcomes
On successful completion of the course students will be able to:
• interpret the concepts of risk factor, cause and confounder in the context of multifactorial theory of causation;
• define epidemiologic measures of disease occurrence and to describe their advantages, disadvantages and methods of calculation;
• explain the meaning of age-standardization;
• list and describe epidemiologic study designs, their characteristic features, advantages and disadvantages;
• list the main types of biases and to give their explanation;
• explain accuracy and precision of measurements and how they affect validity of a study.
• calculate the basic epidemiologic measures of health events and states; measures of association; sensitivity, specificity and predictive values of diagnostic tests;
• apply direct and indirect methods of standardization in order to compare epidemiologic measures.
• differentiate between exposure variable, other risk factors and confounders under conditions of specific research question and hypothesis;
• choose health measures, appropriate for the given health problems;
• assess the suitability of the epidemiologic study design in regard to the research problem;
• interpret the measures of association;
• evaluate the potential influence of confounding and biases on study results.
Study course planning
| Study programme | Study semester | Program level | Study course category | Lecturers | Schedule |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Public Health, SVFM | 1 | Master’s | Limited choice | Solvita Kļaviņa-Makrecka |
