Introduction Descriptive Epidemiology and Public Health

The courses of Nutritional Epidemiology and Public Health are designed 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 field of epidemiology and public health and the work of scientists in this field
• Calculate basic measures used in epidemiology and public health, including: prevalence, incidence rate and proportion, DALY, Years of Life Lost, Healthy Life Expectancy
• Understand basic study designs used in descriptive epidemiology and public health and indicate the major (dis)advantages of the various study designs
• Perform standardization of public health data
• Describe the disease process, global information about the spread of the disease worldwide, time trends in incidence and prevalence, for infectious diseases, diabetes mellitus, cancer, cardiovascular diseases, and osteoporosis

The online master's course teaches you the basic concepts, measures and study designs of descriptive epidemiology and public health. All course concepts are embedded and illustrated within a nutritional epidemiology research context. Descriptive studies investigate when, where and among whom health and disease in certain populations occur. Policy makers can use results of these studies in the field of public health. Different epidemiological and public health measures are introduced to describe health, disease and mortality. You will learn when to use these measures and how to calculate them. In addition, you are introduced to some major diseases that are important from a nutritional perspective, such as diabetes mellitus, cancer, and cardiovascular diseases.

As a (nutritional) epidemiologist you need to know where to find valid data on disease occurrence (prevalence and incidence) worldwide. This will give you insight into differences between countries or regions. However, even data from reliable sources need to be interpreted with caution. Therefore in this course, we have series of online discussion exercises that focus on a few diseases which are important from a nutritional perspective, such as diabetes and cancer. These exercises are used to illustrate epidemiological principles and stimulate critical thinking about epidemiological measurement. The same we will do for mortality and life-expectancy.

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 therefore offers learning activities that allows for supervised self-study at your own pace, with deadlines for assignments. This 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 C. & Bain P. (2017 or 2020). Essential epidemiology: an introduction for students and health professionals. Cambridge University Press, 3rd or 4th edition (as soon as the 5th edition is published, expected 2024/25, the 4th and 5th edition are allowed to use in this course).

Haveman-Nies A, Jansen SC, van Oers JAM, van 't Veer P (2010). Epidemiology in public health practice. Wageningen Academic Publishers, The Netherlands. (second revised version), only one or two chapters are used in this course and will be available in the online learning environment.

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 written exam with closed and open questions.
+Active contribution to online group discussion is compulsory.
+Individual submission of video assignment.

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.