Høst 2020

HEL-3006 Introduction to Epidemiology and Biostatistics - 10 stp

The course is administrated by

Institutt for samfunnsmedisin

Type of course

This course is mandatory for students at the Master's degree programme in Public Health. Course students may be admitted if the total number of students do not exceed the maximum number of 30.

Course contents

The course covers the basic principles and methods of epidemiology including measures of disease occurrence and disease risk in populations and various research designs for investigating the etiology of disease. Introduction to critical review of scientific papers is also included. A fundamental part of this course is biostatistics, where the students will be introduced to hypothesis testing and confidence intervals as well as commonly used methods in quantitative data analysis. The statistical software SPSS is also used.

Application deadline

Applicants from Nordic countries: 1 June for the autumn semester.

Applicants from outside the Nordic countries: 15 April for the autumn semester.

Admission requirements

Admission criteria: The same as for the Master's programme in Public Health. See the programme page. Application Code: 9371 (Nordic applicants).

Objective of the course

Knowledge The students should be able to define central principles in epidemiology, including important concepts in demography, and be able to explain the benefits and drawbacks of various epidemiological study designs. The students should further be able to explain basic statistical concepts in univariate, bivariate and multiple analysis.

Skills and competences The students should be able to:

apply central concepts in epidemiology and demography
identify the study design used in scientific medical papers
select the correct type of epidemiological and statistical data analyses for a given data set
use descriptive measures, one- and two-sample tests (t-tests, chi-square tests and non-parametric tests), correlation and linear regression
use SPSS for data editing and statistical analyses
interpret the results from the statistical and epidemiological analyses, showing a basic understanding of relative and absolute risks, p-values and confidence intervals

Language of instruction

English

Teaching methods

There will be three gatherings lasting 4-5 days each. The course includes lectures, exercises and group work. Attendance to lectures and seminars is mandatory. The online learning management system Canvas is an important tool in this course.

Assessment

Assignments:

Attendance to lectures and seminars is mandatory.

The students have to pass two written home assignments before they are allowed to take the exam. The assignments are individual exercises, and will be handed out between the 1st and 2nd session, and between the 2nd and 3rd session. The students will have two weeks to complete assignments, which will be graded as approved or not approved. The assignments should be handed in online.

Exam:

The final exam consists of a six hours written university based digital exam. The exam will be held using computers through online exam module (if not otherwise stated). Students must pass the mandatory assignments before being eligible to take the exam. The assignments and the exam can be written in Norwegian, Swedish, Danish or English. For the exam - Grading scale: A-E equals passed, F equals failed.

If a student fails the course, an examination re-sit will be organised. Students with valid absence from the exam will be offered a re-scheduled examination.

Date for examination

Written examination 23.11.2020

The date for the exam can be changed. The final date will be announced at your faculty early in May and early in November.