Undergraduate - UnitHSC2141 - Analysing patterns of health and disease

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2013 only. For students planning to study the unit, please refer to the unit indexes in the the current edition of the Handbook. If you have any queries contact the managing faculty for your course or area of study.

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6 points, SCA Band 2, 0.125 EFTSL

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Level	Undergraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Organisational Unit	Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
Offered	Caulfield First semester 2013 (Day) South Africa First semester 2013 (Day) Caulfield Second semester 2013 (Day)
Coordinator(s)	Danny Hills (Caulfield), Juliana Kagura (South Africa)

Synopsis

This unit provides an introduction to epidemiological and statistical concepts necessary for understanding patterns of health and disease in populations. It extends the overview provided in HSC1061, reviews how health and disease are measured, and covers how patterns of health and disease in populations are investigated, including study designs and basic statistical methods for analyzing health data. Students are introduced to different study designs and to the concepts of bias and confounding. Case studies include local, national and global examples of epidemiological research, including Australian Indigenous health issues and global health inequalities.

Outcomes

On successful completion of the unit, students will be able to:

Critically analyse the strengths and weaknesses of different epidemiological study designs
Critically appraise the popular and biomedical literature on population health
Identify fundamental ethical considerations that underpin health research
Identify the importance of statistical methods in the design, analysis and presentation of the results of research studies in health and biomedicine, and in reports of health related matters in general
Explain basic statistical methods and when to apply them
Interpret statistical results presented in the biomedical literature and other media, and convey the interpretation in simple language.
Identify different approaches to the nature of 'evidence' in public health and the implications of such approaches for measurement of health and well being of

Indigenous Australians and other population groups.

Assessment

Hurdle requirement: At least 80% attendance at tutorial/computer laboratory classes
Written assignments (2) 35%
Group presentation 15%
In-class biostatistics tests (2) 20%
Exam 30%