Public Health and Epidemiology (SVUEK_036)
About Study Course
Objective
To provide basic knowledge and understanding of the modern public health and epidemiology, as well as to promote students’ scientific, systematic and analytic thinking.
Prerequisites
Basic knowledge in human anatomy, physiology and pathology. Knowledge of English in order to read and analyse course literature.
Learning outcomes
Upon successful completion of the course the students will:
• define the concept of health and list main groups of health determinants;
• formulate practical and scientific tasks of the public health discipline;
• classify and describe the levels of disease prevention and 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;
• define principles of demographic measures;
• define basic principles of screening;
• define indices of diagnostic testing reliability and validity;
• describe health information types, its main sources and factors influencing its quality;
• classify main designs of epidemiological studies and list their advantages and limitations;
• explain the concepts of confounding and bias.
The students will be able to:
• differentiate causal and non-causal associations of factors and health events;
• describe and give examples about disease prevention and health promotion;
• calculate measures of health events and states;
• calculate demographic measures;
• differentiate crude, specific and standartised rates;
• calculate indices of diagnostic testing reliability and validity;
• differentiate and compare electronic data bases for the selection of health information;
• appraise validity of epidemiological studies corresponding to the study designs;
• calculate measures of association.
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 and demographic 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.
Study course planning
| Study programme | Study semester | Program level | Study course category | Lecturers | Schedule |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pharmacy, FF | 8 | Master’s | Required | Mirdza Kursīte, Solvita Kļaviņa-Makrecka |
