Epidemiological research is ubiquitous. Even if you don’t realise it, you come across epidemiological studies and the impact of their findings every single day. You have probably heard that obesity is increasing in high income countries or that malaria is killing millions of people in low income countries. It is common knowledge that smoking causes cancer and that physical activity is protective against heart disease. These facts may seem obvious today, but it took decades of epidemiological research to produce the necessary evidence. In this course, you will learn the fundamental tools of epidemiology which are essential to conduct such studies, starting with the measures used to describe the frequency of a disease or health-related condition. You will also learn how to quantify the strength of an association and discuss the distinction between association and causation. In the second half of the course, you will use this knowledge to describe different strategies for prevention, identify strengths and weaknesses of diagnostic tests and consider when a screening programme is appropriate.
本课程是 Epidemiology for Public Health 专项课程 专项课程的一部分
Measuring Disease in Epidemiology
课程信息
您将学到的内容有
Calculate and interpret appropriate measures in order to describe disease frequency, association and attributable risk for given scenarios.
Calculate sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, in order to interpret these values in the context of screening.
您将获得的技能
可分享的证书
100% 在线
第 1 门课程（共 3 门）
可灵活调整截止日期
初级
A background in health sciences or/and quantitative methods would be useful, but not essential.
完成时间大约为15 小时
英语（English）
教学大纲 - 您将从这门课程中学到什么
Measures of disease frequency
One of the main purposes of epidemiology is to describe the frequency of diseases or other conditions that are important for the health of populations. Depending on the circumstances, there are different types of measures that you can use to do this. In this module, you will learn to calculate measures such as the prevalence, odds, cumulative incidence and incidence rate. We will highlight what they have in common as well as their differences. By the end of the module, you will be able to select and calculate the appropriate measure of frequency in a variety of contexts.
Measures of association
This module starts by introducing the distinction between association and causation, which is critical not only for epidemiology, but for research in general. Subsequently, you will learn all the main measures epidemiologists use to quantify association; mainly risk and rate differences and risk, rate and odds ratios. Over the course of this module, you will develop the skills to calculate and interpret measures of frequency. This is not enough by itself though, so you will also learn to select the most appropriate measure depending on the research question and the availability of data.
Attributable risk and strategies for prevention
Published studies often report the magnitude of the association they investigate, which is clearly important when trying to identify causal links. Sometimes though, what we are interested in is the impact of a factor or of a disease on the population as a whole. This is when the concepts of attributable risk and of population attributable risk come in handy. These measures quantify the population impact of a health-related factor and therefore are particularly useful for health policy. Equipped with this knowledge, you will then explore the two main approaches to disease prevention: the high-risk and the population approach.
Disease detection and screening
Diagnostic tests are used all the time to determine whether an individual is sick or not. However, these tests are far from perfect. Quantifying their imperfection allows us to understand their limitations and interpret their results. In this module, you will learn to calculate and interpret the metrics used to do this, including sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values. Using these metrics, you will subsequently learn to evaluate whether a screening programme can be effective or not considering its methodological and practical aspects.
审阅
4.7
来自MEASURING DISEASE IN EPIDEMIOLOGY的热门评论
The develop of this course was amazing,. There were some difficults but in my opinion, the Lecturers were so clear in general giving us the information. It was a great experience for me.
The couse is excellent but the quizzes answers should be multiple choices not open answer and after passing the quizzust provide us with the right answers of the wrong answered one
This was a very very informative and I truly enjoyed every bit of it during this 4 weeks. I am saying thank you so much to the organizers of this wonderful course 100% thumbs up!
Thank you for the excellent course materials, quizzes, and discussions. They have been extremely useful in updating my knowledge. Please keep the good work going.
提供方
伦敦帝国学院
Imperial College London is a world top ten university with an international reputation for excellence in science, engineering, medicine and business. located in the heart of London. Imperial is a multidisciplinary space for education, research, translation and commercialisation, harnessing science and innovation to tackle global challenges.
立即开始攻读硕士学位
关于 Epidemiology for Public Health 专项课程
常见问题
我什么时候能够访问课程视频和作业？
注册以便获得证书后，您将有权访问所有视频、测验和编程作业（如果适用）。只有在您的班次开课之后，才可以提交和审阅同学互评作业。如果您选择在不购买的情况下浏览课程，可能无法访问某些作业。
我订阅此专项课程后会得到什么？
您注册课程后，将有权访问专项课程中的所有课程，并且会在完成课程后获得证书。您的电子课程证书将添加到您的成就页中，您可以通过该页打印您的课程证书或将其添加到您的领英档案中。如果您只想阅读和查看课程内容，可以免费旁听课程。
退款政策是如何规定的？
有助学金吗？
还有其他问题吗？请访问 学生帮助中心。
