• Weitkunat Rolf

An introductory overview on the history and conceptual background of epidemiology, its basic concepts, terminology and taxonomy will be given. Topics are principal research approaches, data acquisition methods, essential study designs and specific methodological issues in observational (as compared to interventional/experimental) research. These include basic concepts of evidence and causality; measures of disease frequency, association, risk, and population impact; principles of point and precision estimates and of major analysis strategies; conditioning methods, including stratification, standardization, matching, control of and adjustment for confounders; explanatory, predictive and structural modeling of primary epidemiological data; analyses of ecological (aggregated) data; and meta-analytical methods.
While not covering all methods and details, the course aims at providing students with a synopsis and basic understanding of the principles of descriptive, analytical, and clinical epidemiology. It strives at enabling participants to gauge epidemiological findings, both with respect to the adequacy of the underlying research and analysis methods as well as to their meaning and scope.
 

Basic Literature

• Cumming G (2012). Understanding the new statistics.
• Gerstman BB (2003). Epidemiology kept simple. Hoboken: Wiley.
• Kleinbaum DG, Sullivan KM, Barker ND (2007). A pocket guide to epidemiology. New York: Springer.
• Olsen J, Christensen K, Murray J, & Ekbom A (2010). An introduction to epidemiology for health professionals. New York: Springer.
• Selvin S (2011). Statistical tools for epidemiologic research: New York: Oxford.
• Weitkunat R & Moretti M (2005). Health and behavior. In J. Kerr et al. (eds.), ABC of behavior change. Edinburgh: Elsevier

Advanced Literature
Advanced literature related to specific topics will be announced during the course.