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Epidemiology

People

Di Serio C.

Course director

Description

Course Objectives

Students will learn the concepts and methods of quantitative and qualitative research in the field of public health, with reference to its applications in the field of neuroscience, promoting a “population neuroscience” approach.

Students will acquire the tools and apply different strategies to integrate quantitative methods with qualitative ones. The aim is to promote a participatory approach, in which research is conceived, designed, conducted and transposed into practice in collaboration with a wide range of stakeholders present and active at the community level, where and for which the research is carried out.

Students will also acquire skills, and apply them in practice, in the selection, synthesis and critical reading of scientific literature and literature defined as 'gray'. In addition to critical reasoning, students will acquire skills to identify the barriers and in addition to critical reasoning, students will acquire skills to identify the barriers and opportunities related to the implementation and promotion of the dissemination and application of evidence-based knowledge in the contexts of health promotion and communication, and the prevention and treatment of diseases.

Course Description

The first part of the course introduces the basic concepts of epidemiology and biostatistics as applied to public health problems, clinical issues and areas of health services such as genetic counseling. Emphasis is placed on the principles and methods of epidemiological investigation, appropriate summaries and displays of data, and the use of classical statistical approaches to describe the health of populations. The course will focus also on principle of multivariate medical statistics, hypothesis testing, multivariate regression and ANOVA.

The second part will be dedicated to Epidemiological Study design.

In particular:

Epidemiological Measures – Rate, ratio, proportion, Incidence and prevalence, Relative risk, Risk ratio, Odds ratio

Reliability and validity of screening and diagnostic tests, ROC analysis

Development of research tools

Protocol preparation

Proposal writing

Report writing and publishing

Critical review of research report and journal article.

Teaching will be organised through theoretical lessons, interactive computer lab and individual presentations.

This course will introduce students to Public Health and its application to different contexts. Course topics will span from epidemiology, to the health policy and programs, through study designs and critical appraisal of the scientific literature. Through the duration of the course, we will use frontal lectures and practical activities. Group work will consist in the design and development of a public health project through the duration of the module.

Attendance
Mandatory for at least 80% of the course

Evaluation procedures and Grading criteria
Witten exam

Education