Epidemiology is often described as the cornerstone science in public health. Epidemiology in public health practice uses study design and analyses to identify causes in an outbreak situation, guides interventions to improve population health, and evaluates programs and policies. In this course, we'll define the role of the professional epidemiologist as it relates to public health services, functions, and competencies. With that foundation in mind, we'll introduce you to the problem solving methodology and demonstrate how it can be used in a wide variety of settings to identify problems, propose solutions, and evaluate interventions. This methodology depends on the use of reliable data, so we'll take a deep dive into the routine and public health data systems that lie at the heart of epidemiology and then conclude with how you can use that data to calculate measures of disease burden in populations.
This course is part of the Epidemiology in Public Health Practice Specialization
Data and Health Indicators in Public Health Practice
Offered By
About this Course
Learner Career Outcomes
38%
43%
21%
Learner Career Outcomes
38%
43%
21%
100% online
Course 2 of 5 in the
Flexible deadlines
Beginner Level
Approx. 10 hours to complete
English
Instructor
Keri Althoff, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor
14,940 Learners
1 CourseOffered by
Johns Hopkins University
The mission of The Johns Hopkins University is to educate its students and cultivate their capacity for life-long learning, to foster independent and original research, and to bring the benefits of discovery to the world.
Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Introduction and Problem-Solving Methodology
In this module, we will introduce the problem solving methodology. This methodology is a powerful tool that can useful when identifying a public health problem, building the case that there truly is a problem, suggesting interventions, and suggestions ways to evaluate the interventions and disseminate the findings of the evaluation.
Data Sources in Public Health
In this module, we dive deeper into what lies at the heart of epidemiology: data! More specifically, we will look at routine and public health data systems.
Measures of Disease Burden
In this module we will use data from routine and public health information systems to measure the burden of disease in the population. We will calculate crude mortality rates, and then apply direct and indirect age standardization methods.
Health Indicators
In this module, we'll discuss health indicators, which are important measurements of the health of a population. There are numerous health indicators that help us paint the picture of a populations health. We'll talk about characteristics of good health indicators to provide a little guidance on how to choose health indicators for the public health problem of interest. Then, we'll use the example of the health indicator of liver cancer incidence to explore descriptive epidemiology. We will stratify liver cancer incidence by person, place, and time, to build our skills in descriptive epidemiology.
Top reviews from Data and Health Indicators in Public Health Practice
Excellent introduction to epidemiology and public health, all the topics link together well and provide a good understanding of the public health basics which assist with related study and work.
This was an excellent short course providing valuable resources and practice components to become more familiar with the calculations\n\nI would definitely recommend this course. Thank you
About the Epidemiology in Public Health Practice Specialization
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