EPM5001 - Health indicators and health surveys

Leader: A/Prof J Simpson

Offered

Alfred Hospital First semester 2007 (Off-campus)

Synopsis

Introduction to a variety of health-related data collection sources, calculation of population fertility, mortality and morbidity rates, health service utilisation measures, disease registration and reporting. Use of direct and indirect age standardisation, life expectancy calculations, valid comparisons and health differentials. Development design and delivery of health questionnaires. Use of focus groups, standard instruments for health surveys, coding, validity, reliability of measures and modes of data collection. Efficient sampling strategies, data interpretation and analysis including stratification, clustering and weighting.

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.

Assessment

Written assignments (100%)

Co-requisites

MPH1040