Advanced Methods in Epidemiology: History and Concepts

Inter-University Postgraduate Programme in Public Health of the Swiss-German Universities

Geneva 4-6 January 2006

Within the framework of Inter-University Postgraduate Programme in Public Health of the Swiss-German Universities (www.public-health-edu.ch) and under the heading ”Advanced Methods in Epidemiology” a series of short courses were introduced in 2003 to complement the existing epidemiology programme. The focus of these courses, which generally run over three days, are on skills relevant to study design, critical appraisal and data analysis in Stata™. Courses will not run every year, but over several years this series should cover the most important recent developments in epidemiological methodology.

The Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research is organising the Course in Advanced Methods in Epidemiology: History and Concepts in January 2006.

Background

In most schools or programs of public health, epidemiologic concepts and methods are taught in two or three courses, each course presenting an increasing degree of complexity. Even though the course topics look the same (cohort and case-control designs, confounding, interaction, bias and causal inference), their content is different. In the basic courses, students are familiarized with the existence of these concepts and methods and taught simple definitions that will allow them to recognize them in their research and understand some of the issues related to them. The courses ”Biostatistics I” and ”Methoden der Epidemiologie” are prerequisites. In this advanced course, the same concepts and methods are revisited but with more extensive exploration of their properties. The students at this level are prepared to adapt the methods to specific research questions and to eventually make them evolve when encountering new types of problems.

Goals

Students will: 1) learn how to use the epidemiological methods and concepts to design studies and prepare protocols; 2) understand the historical origin of current epidemiological tools; 3) be exposed to current developments in epidemiologic methods.

Content

Students will learn to understand and to apply the design of prospective and retrospective studies, and the concepts of bias, confounding and interaction (see lecture plan). They will also be brought to think in terms of causation, with different levels of sophistication. The course will not deal with statistical methods or data analysis.

History of epidemiologic methods: this is an overview of genesis of the methods and concepts that will discussed in the course. The material is based on a series of papers available at http://www.epidemiology.ch/, select history.
Cohort / case-control studies: These lectures will show why cohort studies are the natural design for all types of epidemiologic investigations and why case-control studies need always to be conceived as nested in cohorts. Design of case-control studies in conditions where the study base is not well defined will be discussed. The consequences of case-base, case-concurrent and traditional schemes of control selection on the interpretation of the odds ratio will also be explained.
Confounding: These lectures will present how to assess the presence of confounding using weak or strong conditions, and how confounding can be dealt with in matched observational studies or in randomized studies.
Interaction: These lectures will present how to assess and interpret the presence of additive or multiplicative, using three different approaches.
Bias: A theory of bias based on their mechanism will be presented, differentiating biases related to loss of accuracy (e.g., misclassification bias) from biases related to unbalanced identification of the compared groups (e.g., selection bias).
Causal inference: This lecture will present how the different methods and concepts presented in the course can be integrated.
New methodological developments: this lecture will deal with the so-called multilevel studies.

This material is based on a textbook by A. Morabia : History of Epidemiological Methods and Concepts. Birkhäuser, 2004.

Methods

Lectures and discussion of specific problems.

Target audience, admission

Students, who have already had a basic training in epidemiology.
The courses «Biostatistik I» (2020) and «Methoden der Epidemiologie» (3060) are required.

Dates: 4-6 January 2006

Credits for the MPH-Curriculum: 1.0 MPH Credit or 1.5 ECTS Credits - in field 1 (cf. Chapter 6 „MPH-Curriculum“)

Exams: Essay at home

Language: English

Location: Geneva

Fee: CHF 950.- (course material included)

Lecturers

Alfredo Morabia, MD, PhD, Professor and Director, Clinical Epidemiology Division, University Hospital, Geneva
Sharon Schwartz, PhD, Associate Professor, Columbia University, New York

Organisation/Inscription

The Geneva Foundation for Medical Education and Research, 3 Route de Florissant, 1206 Geneva; Telephone: +41.22.346.77.16; Fax: +41.22.346.78.34
secretariat@gfmer.ch

Deadline for registration: 3 December 2005

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Edited by Aldo Campana,