The Summer Institute schedule offers courses that meet for three weeks, two weeks, or one week as well as a weekend course. In addition to offering basic and advanced courses on epidemiologic and biostatistical concepts and methods that can stand alone, the curriculum allows students combinations of courses that either expand their breadth of knowledge or enable them to delve more deeply into a specialized topic area of their choice. Such topic areas include observational and experimental study designs, multiple facets of genetic epidemiology, and statistical analysis techniques:
Epidemiologic Methods The methods series of courses aim at exposing students to the concepts, methodologic strategies, and practical aspects of epidemiology. This group of courses includes lectures and laboratory discussions related to observational (case-control and cohort) and experimental (clinical trials) study designs used by epidemiologists to conduct research on risk factors, and on therapeutic and preventive interventions. The courses emphasize not only the theoretical underpinnings of the different epidemiologic investigation designs, but also their practical applications. The two introductory courses - Principles of Epidemiology and Intermediate Epidemiology - cover the main issues that represent the foundations of epidemiology, including approaches to investigate epidemics, natural history of disease, principles of screening, basic study designs, interaction and threats to causal inference (confounding and bias). The methods, inferential aspects, and applications specific to observational and experimental designs are discussed in greater detail in the courses, Applications of the Case Control Method and Methods and Applications of Cohort Studies. Finally, two one-week courses - Conducting Epidemiologic Research and New Perspectives on Management of Epidemiologic Studies - deal with the practical aspects of study conduct, such as quality assurance and quality control, and management of multi-center studies.
Advanced Biostatistics Methods This set of courses is intended for persons with rudimentary understanding of statistical reasoning and methods who seek to further there ability to read the scientific literature and conduct statistical analysis. The Data Analysis Workshops I and II are highly interactive, problem-solving experiences in which participants work with course faculty to conduct a range of statistical analyses of important public health data sets. The pair of courses Regression Analysis and Regression Lab will introduce course participants to the main ideas of linear, logistic and survival regression models and then assist them to conduct illustrative data analyses. The course Survival Analysis is a more advanced treatment of the methods for analysis of clinical trial and cohort study time-to-event data. Lectures and data analyses comprise the learning experience. Multi-level Models will give an overview of hierarchical models for the study of the interaction of risk factors from many levels: societal, community, neighborhood, family and personal. This course will comprise lectures and discussions but not data analysis by participants.
Clinical Research We have developed a series of courses for those seeking an in-depth yet rapid introduction to the methods of quantitative clinical research. The course, Clinical Research: An Introduction to Design and Analysis, offered the weekend of June 25-26, is an intensive overview of the quantitative methods used in clinical research; this problem-based course covers the nature of scientific inquiry, principles of study design, descriptive statistics and hypothesis testing, and interpretation of published reports. Course offerings relevant to clinical research which surround the weekend course include Evidence-based Decisions and Pharmacoepidemiology, focusing, respectively, on how to use data in decision making, and on research strategies to evaluate therapeutic agents. These courses meet for one week, offering the possibility of taking them as companions to the weekend overview. Genetics The Summer Institute offers a sequence of genetics related courses, Family Based Genetic Epidemiology , Molecular Biology for Genetic Epidemiology, Gene Expression Data Analysis, and Genetic Epidemiology in Populations. These genetics mini-courses can be taken in a number of combinations, depending on the student’s interests and background. For those with little background in genetics, “Molecular Biology for Genetic Epidemiology” would provide sufficient understanding of genetic terms and molecular mechanisms to proceed on to either of the other courses. Students interested in incorporating genetic information (data and hypotheses) into epidemiologic studies might wish to take the “Genetic Epidemiology in Populations” course, as that allows tests of genetic models using classic epidemiologic study designs. For students interested in learning more about a variety of genetic models and hypotheses, the “Family Based Genetic Epidemiology” course might be more appropriate. For those with a sound basic knowledge of molecular aspects of genetics, these two latter analytical courses would provide a full introduction to the field of genetic epidemiology.
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