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Public Health and Epidemiology
Study Course Description
Course Description Statuss:Approved
Course Description Version:7.00
Study Course Accepted:18.08.2023 11:28:05
| Study Course Information | |||||||||
| Course Code: | SVUEK_036 | LQF level: | Level 7 | ||||||
| Credit Points: | 2.00 | ECTS: | 3.00 | ||||||
| Branch of Science: | Clinical Medicine; Public Health | Target Audience: | Pharmacy | ||||||
| Study Course Supervisor | |||||||||
| Course Supervisor: | Mirdza Kursīte | ||||||||
| Study Course Implementer | |||||||||
| Structural Unit: | Department of Public Health and Epidemiology | ||||||||
| The Head of Structural Unit: | |||||||||
| Contacts: | Riga, 9 Kronvalda boulevard, svek rsu[pnkts]lv, +371 67338307 | ||||||||
| Study Course Planning | |||||||||
| Full-Time - Semester No.1 | |||||||||
| Lectures (count) | 0 | Lecture Length (academic hours) | 0 | Total Contact Hours of Lectures | 0 | ||||
| Classes (count) | 8 | Class Length (academic hours) | 4 | Total Contact Hours of Classes | 32 | ||||
| Total Contact Hours | 32 | ||||||||
| Part-Time - Semester No.1 | |||||||||
| Lectures (count) | 0 | Lecture Length (academic hours) | 0 | Total Contact Hours of Lectures | 0 | ||||
| Classes (count) | 8 | Class Length (academic hours) | 4 | Total Contact Hours of Classes | 32 | ||||
| Total Contact Hours | 32 | ||||||||
| Study course description | |||||||||
| Preliminary Knowledge: | Basic knowledge in human anatomy, physiology and pathology. Knowledge of English in order to read and analyse course literature. | ||||||||
| Objective: | To provide an opportunity to gain basic knowledge and understanding of modern public health and epidemiology, as well as to promote students’ scientific, systematic, and analytic thinking. | ||||||||
| Topic Layout (Full-Time) | |||||||||
| No. | Topic | Type of Implementation | Number | Venue | |||||
| 1 | Health, Public health. | Classes | 1.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 2 | Disease prevention. Health promotion | Classes | 2.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 3 | Epidemiology, Causality. | Classes | 1.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 4 | Basic measures of epidemiology – prevalence and incidence. Crude, specific, standartised rates. | Classes | 1.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 5 | Sources of health information. Data collection. Diagnostic tests. | Classes | 1.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 6 | Study designs, association measures and bias. | Classes | 2.00 | auditorium | |||||
| Topic Layout (Part-Time) | |||||||||
| No. | Topic | Type of Implementation | Number | Venue | |||||
| 1 | Health, Public health. | Classes | 1.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 2 | Disease prevention. Health promotion | Classes | 2.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 3 | Epidemiology, Causality. | Classes | 1.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 4 | Basic measures of epidemiology – prevalence and incidence. Crude, specific, standartised rates. | Classes | 1.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 5 | Sources of health information. Data collection. Diagnostic tests. | Classes | 1.00 | auditorium | |||||
| 6 | Study designs, association measures and bias. | Classes | 2.00 | auditorium | |||||
| Assessment | |||||||||
| Unaided Work: | Independent work with the given literature. Exercise calculations in epidemiology (epidemiologic measures, diagnostic testing, measures of association) during the classes. Reading and critically evaluating scientific papers. In order to evaluate the quality of the study course as a whole, the student must fill out the study course evaluation questionnaire on the Student Portal. | ||||||||
| Assessment Criteria: | Cumulative assessment of: • assessment of three independent work activities (50%); • exam with 50 multiple-choice questions (50%). | ||||||||
| Final Examination (Full-Time): | Exam (Written) | ||||||||
| Final Examination (Part-Time): | Exam (Written) | ||||||||
| Learning Outcomes | |||||||||
| Knowledge: | Upon successful completion of the course, the students will: • define the concept of health and list the main groups of health determinants; • formulate practical and scientific tasks of the public health discipline; • classify and describe the levels of disease prevention and define basic principles of screening; • describe objectives of health promotion; • state historic development of the concept of epidemiology and its current understanding; • formulate the concept of evidence-based health care; • identify and interpret causal factors, risk factors of diseases and health in the frame of multi-factorial theory; • define principles to measure health-related events and states; • describe health information types, their main sources, and factors influencing their quality; • explain measures of test sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values; • explain the relationship between test sensitivity and specificity as illustrated by the ROC curve; • classify the main designs of epidemiological studies and list their advantages and limitations; • explain the concepts of confounding and bias. | ||||||||
| Skills: | The students will be able to: • differentiate causal and non-causal associations of factors and health events; • describe and give examples of disease prevention and health promotion; • calculate measures of health events and states; • differentiate crude, specific and standardized rates; • differentiate and compare electronic databases for the selection of health information; • calculate test sensitivity, specificity, and predictive values; • appraise the validity of epidemiological studies corresponding to the study designs; • calculate measures of association. | ||||||||
| Competencies: | Upon successful completion of the course the students will: • justify the necessity of empirical data for practice of public health and its use to define and solve public health problems; • justify the need of health promotion and disease prevention; • elucidate prior public health problems by using quantitative empirical data; • critically choose health measures for studies of health problems; • critically judge health information depending on its source and taking into account the evidence; • compare research results by their design and measures of association used. | ||||||||
| Bibliography | |||||||||
| No. | Reference | ||||||||
| Required Reading | |||||||||
| 1 | Greenberg, R. S. eds. 2015. Medical Epidemiology: Population Health and Effective Health Care. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Access Medicine DB. | ||||||||
| 2 | Baltiņš M. Lietišķā epidemioloģija. Rīga: Zinātne, 2003. 354 lpp. (akceptējams izdevums) | ||||||||
| 3 | Ārvalstu studentiem/For international students | ||||||||
| 4 | Greenberg, R. S. eds. 2015. Medical Epidemiology: Population Health and Effective Health Care. 5th ed. New York: McGraw-Hill Education. Access Medicine DB. | ||||||||
| Additional Reading | |||||||||
| 1 | Bouter, L. M., Zielhuis, G. and Zeegers M. P. 2018. Textbook of Epidemiology. Bohn Stafleu van Loghum. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost). | ||||||||
| 2 | Donovan D, McDowell I, AFMC Primer on Population Health. A virtual textbook on Public Health concepts for clinicians. 2017 (2nd edition). | ||||||||
| Other Information Sources | |||||||||
| 1 | http://www.cdc.gov | ||||||||
| 2 | http://www.euro.who.int/en/home | ||||||||
| 3 | https://gateway.euro.who.int/en/datasets/european-health-fo… | ||||||||
