流行病學研究設計

Course organization: The course consists of lectures, lab exercise sessions, and group project checkpoint presentation sessions. Lab exercises (in-class discussion): Lab exercises are performed in assigned groups. Attendance at all laboratory sessions is required. Lab exercise documents will be posted on the course website (E3) a week ahead of the lab session. After group discussion of the lab exercise, there will be an open discussion led by the course instructor or TA. If you cannot participate in a lab session, you need to submit your answers to the TA before that lab. Group project: The course will provide open access datasets of different studies. Choose one for your final project. There are 3 checkpoint presentation sessions to help you complete the final project successfully. a) Checkpoint I: Prepare a 12-minute or shorter presentation about the project that your team is going to do. It includes: 1) Rationale for examining the research question (novelty/significance), research question/hypothesis, study population (inclusion criteria), and brief description of the dataset and study design 2) Conceptual framework (X and Y of interest + any confounders or effect modifiers) 3) Describe and define the key variables for the project b) Checkpoint II: Prepare a 12-minute or shorter presentation about the project that your team is going to do. It includes: 1) Updated research question/hypothesis, study population, conceptual framework, detailed variable descriptions, and analytical methods 2) Brief description of preliminary findings (Table 1) 3) Plans for additional analysis/tables c) Checkpoint III: Prepare a 12-minute or shorter presentation about the project that your team has done. It includes: 1) Updated research question/hypothesis, study population, conceptual framework, variable descriptions, and analytical methods 2) Brief description of the full findings and tables 3) Implications of the findings. Strengths and limitations of the analysis d) Final written report: The final written report is a team project consisting of detailed descriptions of the checkpoint presentation components, which include: 1) Title and abstract (250 words or less) 2) Brief introduction/background supporting the research question 3) Detailed methods, results, and discussion 4) Tables (at least 2) and any figures 5) Author contributions Limit the written report to 1500-3000 words. Abstract, tables, references, and author contributions are not included in the word count.

Following the introductory epidemiology course, this course focuses more on epidemiological data analysis and interpretation to expand students' understanding of epidemiological research practice. After successful completion, students are expected to: - Choose the appropriate methods to analyze data of different study designs. - Understand and apply commonly-used statistical models in epidemiological research. - Correctly present and interpret epidemiological results.

Checkpoint I: 10% Checkpoint II: 10% Checkpoint III: 10% Written report: 40% Class and lab participation: 30% (10% per lab session)

There is no required textbook, but there will be required readings for particular lectures. Below are some books and websites that will be helpful. The school library has electronic access to the books. - Kenneth J Rothman, Timothy L Lash, Sander Greenland. (2008) Modern Epidemiology. Wolters Kluwer. - Eric Vittinghoff, David V. Glidden, Stephen C. Shiboski, Charles E. McCulloch (2012) Regression Methods in Biostatistics: Linear, Logistic, Survival, and Repeated Measures Models. Springer.