EPM5001

Health indicators and health surveys ( 6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL)

Leader: A/Prof J Simpson

Offered:
MMS-ALFRED First semester 2006 (OCL)

Synopsis: In this unit students are introduced to a variety of sources of routinely collected health-related data and how these data sources are used to derive population measures of fertility, mortality and morbidity, and to measure health service utilisation, disease registration and reporting. Students learn to use quantitative demographic methods of direct and indirect age standardisation, and calculation of life expectancy by life table techniques to obtain valid comparisons between different population groups, and to examine health differentials.

Objectives: At the completion of this unit students should be able to: 1. derive and compare population measures of mortality, illness, fertility and survival, using basic demographic tools such as life tables and age standardisation; 2. access the main sources of routinely collected health data and choose the appropriate one, taking into account their advantages and disadvantages; 3. design a valid and reliable health survey to collect primary data, design an efficient sampling strategy to obtain random sample of the target population, and choose the most appropriate mode of delivery; 4. analyse, interpret and present the results of survey data, taking the sampling strategy into account.

Homepage: www.med.monash.edu.au/epidemiology/postgrad/

Assessment: Three written assignments (100%)

Corequisites: MPH1040