Graduate Course Directory and Schedules

This course is designed for MPH Epidemiology and Biostatistics majors. The course is intended to give students a good understanding of the epidemiology of the major chronic diseases in developed countries. It covers three aspects of chronic disease: 1) epidemiology methods used in their study, 2) epidemiologic findings and current status of epidemiologic research into various chronic diseases, and 3) the epidemiology of the major risk factors for chronic diseases. The course is based on presentations by researchers and public health practitioners expert on specific chronic disease topics. Students will gain familiarity with some of the classic epidemiologic studies and with some of the innovations to obtaining knowledge contributed by epidemiology.

This course is designed to introduce students to public health in a seminar-style (presentation-discussion) exploration of the basic principles, structures, and functions of public health, and selected important issues in the public health community. This will involve inviting public health and preventive medicine professionals from OHSU, PSU, and the community to present, and facilitate discussion of, their perspectives and current work related to these public health topics and issues.

This is an elective course for epidemiology track masters students. Doctoral students are required to register for at least two terms (one credit each) during the first two years of their program. This course is intended to extend students’ understanding of the field of epidemiology and public health research, and their ability to explore and critique research methods with an emphasis on very current epidemiologic peer-reviewed papers. In weekly sessions, the instructor, guest faculty, and students, will prepare one peer-reviewed article for class discussion that demonstrates or involves innovative public health content or methods. A secondary goal of this class is to prepare students to perform peer-review themselves (e.g., for journals, study sections) using examples of this work from faculty.

Grade mode: Pass / No Pass.

This is the third course in the epidemiology research methods series and is designed to develop your ability to apply your knowledge and skills to the evaluation of cause. Students will become familiar with epidemiologic concepts of disease causation, develop skills in assessing the epidemiologic literature to arrive at causal conclusions, and learn to use those assessments and conclusions to arrive at justifiable plans for action. Early in the academic quarter, lecture presentations and readings will provide the key epidemiologic concepts and principles involved in making judgments about causation. Discussions in Small Groups will focus on seminal journal articles to reinforce students’ understanding of these concepts. Case studies will also be covered in Small Groups, in which students will review and discuss sets of papers on public health topics that require a rigorous assessment of cause. For each of these topics, students will complete formal written papers (assessments) and participate in discussions using an evaluation framework developed for this course. This framework involves assessing the quality and validity of the epidemiologic evidence to support causation and recommending a course of action to protect public health. Students will share the responsibility of leading the Small Groups, and will be assigned a week to lead the class discussion.

Prerequisites:

1. EPI 512/612 Epidemiology I
2. EPI 513/613 Epidemiology II: Methods
3. BSTA 511/611 Estimation & Hypothesis Testing for Applied Biostatistics
4. BSTA 612/612 Linear Models

This course provides students with an opportunity to apply epidemiologic principles to infectious disease, including implementation of control measures based on epidemiologic investigation. It includes a didactic section on specific infectious diseases, followed by a classroom study of both endemic and epidemic outbreaks. There will be in-class exercises on each of the infectious diseases, including the testing of hypotheses based on epidemiologic findings leading to a discussion of control measures.

Recommended Prerequisite: EPI 512, “Epidemiology I”