Introduction Analytical Epidemiology and Public Health

The courses of Nutritional Epidemiology and Public Health are interesting for professionals who are conducting or using nutritional and/or health/disease research among various research target groups like patients, elderly or f.i. regional populations. It is also suitable for teachers in nutrition and/or health education, policy makers of (inter)national organisations or governments, managers of food or pharma industries that develop specific (medical) nutrition for target groups and the courses are furthermore open to anyone who wants to engage a career in the work field of nutritional epidemiology and public health.

Prerequisite knowledge:

To be able to pass the Master level online exam it is wise to start this course with a BSc level in a nutritional or health related education with a good background in statistics.

• Describe the main nutrition related and other risk factors of major communicable and non-communicable diseases: diabetes mellitus, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, mental health disorders among elderly people, osteoporosis
• Calculate basic measures used in epidemiology and public health, including various measures of association, including PR, IRR, IPR and OR, and (population) attributable risk and fraction
• Explain basic study designs used in analytical epidemiology and public health and indicate the major (dis)advantages of the various study designs, including ecological study, cross-sectional study, cohort study, case-control study, randomized controlled trial
• Explain internal validity issues, i.e., selection bias, information bias, and confounding, and discuss how these can affect the results while using different study designs
• Explain the difference between internal and external validity of epidemiological findings, explain the basic concept of causality, and interpret precision measures
• Calculate various measures used for disease screening, including sensitivity, specificity and diagnostic value

In this online master's course you will learn about the basic concepts, measures and study designs in analytical epidemiology and public health. Analytical studies investigate patterns, causes and effects of health and disease conditions in certain populations. These studies give insight into risk factors of diseases and can inform policy makers in the field of public health to design prevention strategies.

You will learn common measures as well as methods that support interpretation of study results, including their strengths and limitations. In addition, risk factors of major communicable and non-communicable diseases are discussed.

This course is quite time-intensive and requires approximately 20 hours per week for the average participant. There are assignments with deadlines.

Activities

This course is an online course at master level that you follow in a cohort. Learners participate at different time points and from different time zones, as most learners also have a job. The programme therefor offers learning activities that allow you to supervised self-study at your own pace, with deadlines for assignments, and can include knowledge clips, e-learning modules, online individual and group exercises and assignments, online discussions, and in some courses occasionally live question hours through MS Teams at specific dates and times. There are no online live classes. The exam has a fixed date.

This course is quite time-intensive and requires approximately 20 hours per week for the average participant. There are assignments with deadlines.

Literature

Webb, Penny; Bain, Chris & Page, Andrew (2020). Essential Epidemiology: An Introduction for Students and Health Professionals. 4th ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN13: 978-1-108-766807. E-book available through the WUR-library.

Upon successful completion - passing the exam -, a digital Micro-credentials certificate (EduBadge) with 3 study credits (ECTS) is issued. The EduBadge certifies the learning outcomes of short-term learning experiences, marking the quality of a course.

+Remote proctored exam with closed and open questions.
+Individual submission of a poster based on a scientific article that used one of the main study designs used in epidemiology.
+Active participation online discussions.

Participation in the exam is optional. If you decide not to participate in the exam, you do not qualify for a certificate and/or micro-credential.