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Imperial College London

Measuring Disease in Epidemiology

Filippos Filippidis

Instructor: Filippos Filippidis

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Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.7

(749 reviews)

Beginner level

Recommended experience

Flexible schedule
Approx. 10 hours
Learn at your own pace
96%
Most learners liked this course
Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.
4.7

(749 reviews)

Beginner level

Recommended experience

Flexible schedule
Approx. 10 hours
Learn at your own pace
96%
Most learners liked this course

What you'll learn

  • Calculate and interpret appropriate measures in order to describe disease frequency, association and attributable risk for given scenarios.

  • Calculate sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values, in order to interpret these values in the context of screening.

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Assessments

7 assignments

Taught in English

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This course is part of the Epidemiology for Public Health Specialization
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There are 4 modules in this course

One of the main purposes of epidemiology is to describe the frequency of diseases or other conditions that are important for the health of populations. Depending on the circumstances, there are different types of measures that you can use to do this. In this module, you will learn to calculate measures such as the prevalence, odds, cumulative incidence and incidence rate. We will highlight what they have in common as well as their differences. By the end of the module, you will be able to select and calculate the appropriate measure of frequency in a variety of contexts.

What's included

5 videos9 readings1 assignment2 discussion prompts1 plugin

This module starts by introducing the distinction between association and causation, which is critical not only for epidemiology, but for research in general. Subsequently, you will learn all the main measures epidemiologists use to quantify association; mainly risk and rate differences and risk, rate and odds ratios. Over the course of this module, you will develop the skills to calculate and interpret measures of frequency. This is not enough by itself though, so you will also learn to select the most appropriate measure depending on the research question and the availability of data.

What's included

5 videos5 readings2 assignments1 discussion prompt

Published studies often report the magnitude of the association they investigate, which is clearly important when trying to identify causal links. Sometimes though, what we are interested in is the impact of a factor or of a disease on the population as a whole. This is when the concepts of attributable risk and of population attributable risk come in handy. These measures quantify the population impact of a health-related factor and therefore are particularly useful for health policy. Equipped with this knowledge, you will then explore the two main approaches to disease prevention: the high-risk and the population approach.

What's included

3 videos4 readings1 assignment1 discussion prompt

Diagnostic tests are used all the time to determine whether an individual is sick or not. However, these tests are far from perfect. Quantifying their imperfection allows us to understand their limitations and interpret their results. In this module, you will learn to calculate and interpret the metrics used to do this, including sensitivity, specificity, positive and negative predictive values. Using these metrics, you will subsequently learn to evaluate whether a screening programme can be effective or not considering its methodological and practical aspects.

What's included

6 videos6 readings3 assignments1 plugin

Instructor

Instructor ratings
4.8 (232 ratings)
Filippos Filippidis
Imperial College London
4 Courses34,215 learners

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Recommended if you're interested in Public Health

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