This is a doctoral level course in epidemiology study design and research methods.
Course Objectives
The primary goal of this required course in the PhD Epidemiology program is to foster a fundamental and thorough understanding of the concepts of epidemiologic study design to address a particular research question. It is expected that students will already have learned the basic principles and study designs for epidemiologic query in their prior learning and experience. In this course, these fundamentals will be revisited to deepen and enrich students’ knowledge.Specific objectives are to:
develop and refine an epidemiologic research question;
understand the underlying principles and concepts in qualitative and quantitative epidemiologic methods;
consider and evaluate the application of various epidemiologic study designs to acquire new evidence to answer a research question;
acquire skills in critical appraisal of existing epidemiologic evidence and to assimilate these in a systematic review; and
understand how to draw causal inference by means of empirical evidence with mindful consideration of issues to be addressed in the study, including the likely effects of bias and confounding.
General Requirements
Equivalent courses in: Introductory biostatistics and regression (see Introductory Biostatistics I (5201F), Introductory Biostatistics II (5202S)), Epidemiology and epidemiologic methods (see Epidemiologic Methods I (CHL 5401F), Introduction to Clinical Epidemiology (CHL 5301), and Epidemiologic Methods II (CHL5402S)) or permission of instructor.