Schedule
Course Calendar
The topics that we will cover 4 broad units:
- Measurement: Quantifying the amount and distribution of disease and disease burden
- Weeks 2-4
- Topics: measuring disease, direct and indirect standardization, measuring life expectancy and survival
- Study designs and causal inference: The planning and conduct of studies to identify risk factors and causes of disease
- Weeks 5-10
- Topics: cohort and case-control studies, confounding and causation, randomized controlled trials
- Statistical thinking: Quantifying uncertainty in study results and assessing bias
- Weeks 11-13
- Topics: sampling error and confidence intervals, hypothesis testing, biases and measurement error
- Disease screening: Evaluating tools and practices for early detection of disease
- Week 14
Videos that I will ask you to watch before class can be found in this YouTube playlist. Look at the schedule table below to navigate to the pre-class video to watch before Tuesday’s class. Use the Guiding Questions at the bottom of this page to guide your focus.
| Week | Tuesday | Thursday | Announcements |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1/18: Welcome to Epidemiology! | ||
| 2 |
1/23: Measuring disease (part 1) Pre-class video: Measuring disease: morbidity (slides) |
1/25: Measuring disease (part 2) | |
| 3 |
1/30: Direct and indirect standardization (part 1) Pre-class video: Measuring disease: mortality (slides) |
2/1: Direct and indirect standardization (part 2) | Homework 1 due Monday 2/5 at midnight |
| 4 |
2/6: Measuring life expectancy and survival (part 1) Pre-class video: Life expectancy and related measures (slides) |
2/8: Measuring life expectancy and survival (part 2) We will wrap up our Measurement unit with Mini-Project 1 (to be worked on in groups during class and turned in at the end of class). |
|
| 5 |
2/13: Cohort studies (part 1) Pre-class video: Cohort studies (slides) |
2/15: Cohort studies (part 2) Before class read the following sections of the paper Association of Stillbirth With Ambient Air Pollution in a California Cohort Study: Abstract (summary paragraph at beginning), Introduction, Methods, Discussion. |
Homework 2 due Monday 2/19 at midnight. Schedule Content Conversation 1 (15 minutes) for next week (2/21-2/28) via Calendly. |
| 6 |
2/20: Case-control studies (part 1) Pre-class video: Case-control studies (slides) |
2/22: Case-control studies (part 2) | Content Conversation 1 (15 minutes) will be taking place this week. |
| 7 |
2/27: Confounding and causation (part 1) Pre-class video and slides: Available on Moodle |
2/29: MSCS Capstone Days! No class but please attend talks! | Content Conversation 1 (15 minutes) will be taking place this week. |
| 8 |
3/5: Confounding and causation (part 2) Before class please read The Birth Weight "Paradox" Uncovered? |
3/7: Confounding and causation (part 3) | Homework 3 due FRIDAY 3/8 at midnight. |
| 9 | 3/9-3/17: Spring Break! | ||
| 10 |
3/19: Randomized controlled trials Pre-class video: Randomized controlled trials (slides) |
3/21: Mini-Project 2 We will wrap up our Study Designs and Causal Inference unit with Mini-Project 2 (to be worked on in groups during class and turned in at the end of class). |
|
| 11 |
3/26: Logistic regression No pre-class video or reading. Content will be covered in class. |
3/28: Pause and reflect A day for community and connection |
|
| 12 |
4/2: Statistical inference No pre-class video or reading. Content will be covered in class. |
4/4: Biases and measurement error No pre-class video or reading. Content will be covered in class. |
Homework 4 and Project Milestone 1 due Monday 4/8 at midnight. |
| 13 |
4/9: Disease screening (part 1) Pre-class video: Disease screening: biases (slides) |
4/11: Disease screening (part 2) |
Homework 5 due Monday 4/15 at midnight. Schedule Content Conversation 2 (20 minutes) for the week of 4/22-4/26 via Calendly. |
| 14 | 4/16: Project work time | 4/18: Project work time | Schedule Content Conversation 2 (20 minutes) for next week (4/22-4/26) via Calendly. |
| 15 | 4/23: Project work time | 4/25: Project work time | Content Conversation 2 (20 minutes) will be taking place this week. |
| 16 | 4/30-5/4: Reading period and finals | ||
Guiding Questions
Measuring disease: morbidity
- What is the difference between a rate and a proportion?
- What is the difference between disease risk and burden?
- Why is prevalence not a measure of the risk for getting disease?
- What is the difference between prevalence and incidence?
- Describe how the prevalence of a disease is affected by incidence and typical duration of disease.
Measuring disease: mortality
- Explain the difference between a mortality rate and a case-fatality rate.
- If proportionate mortality due to a disease increases from one year to the next, does that mean that risk of death from that disease has increased? Why or why not?
- Why could it be misleading to compare crude mortality rates between populations?
- Describe the rationale behind the direct standardization technique.
Cohort studies
- What is the rationale for how cohort studies help us study the link between exposures and disease outcomes?
- Briefly describe the difference between measuring the strength of association between exposure and disease versus impact of exposure on disease risk.
Case-control studies
- Why might one prefer to conduct a case-control study over a cohort study?
- Why do we use the odds ratio as a measure of association in case-control studies, rather than a relative risk?
Confounding and causation
- How do we check to see whether a variable confounds the relationship between an exposure and an outcome?
- Why should we not adjust for mediators in a causal pathway between an exposure and an outcome?
Randomized controlled trials
- How does randomization work to control known and unknown confounding?
- Why is blinding crucial in a randomized trial?
Disease screening
- Describe how lead time bias can result in an overestimation of the benefits of screening.
- Describe how length bias can result in an overestimation of the benefits of screening.