Postgraduate - UnitMPH5040 - Introductory epidemiology

This unit entry is for students who completed this unit in 2014 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

Refer to the specific census and withdrawal dates for the semester(s) in which this unit is offered, or view unit timetables.

Level	Postgraduate
Faculty	Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences
Organisational Unit	Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine
Offered	Alfred Hospital First semester 2014 (Day) Alfred Hospital First semester 2014 (Off-campus)
Coordinator(s)	Dr D Magliano / Prof F Cicuttini

Synopsis

To be taken concurrently with MPH5041 together they are prerequisites for clinical epidemiology elective units. Contents: rates, sources of data, descriptive & analytical epidemiology, epidemiological study designs, critical appraisal of literature, screening, prevention, exposure assessment, outbreak investigation, confounding & bias.

Outcomes

On completion of this unit students should be able to:

explain and contextualise the purposes of descriptive and analytical epidemiology;
explain and contextualise the concepts of study questions, population, sampling, exposure assessment, bias and confounding;
analyse the strengths and weaknesses of different epidemiological study designs;
critically analyse epidemiological papers from the medical research and OHS literature;
evaluate the adequacy of exposure assessment in epidemiological studies;
interpret and communicate the results of epidemiological studies; and
solve complex problems relating to the use of epidemiological concepts and study designs.

Assessment

Assignments (25%)
Examination (75%)

Chief examiner(s)

Dr Dianna Magliano

Workload requirements

2 contact hours per week for on-campus students.

Off-campus attendance requirements

2 day compulsory on-campus block for off-campus students.

Co-requisites

MPH5041 and must be enrolled in a course taught by Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine. Students in other courses require permission to enrol in this unit.

Additional information on this unit is available from the faculty at:

http://www.med.monash.edu.au/epidemiology/pgrad