Public Health Sciences Course Program (PHS)

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Introduction to Epidemiology and Study Design

Epidemiology - a core discipline of the public health sciences – provides a toolbox for studying the frequency and patterns of health/disease conditions and their determinants. In this course, we introduce concepts and measures used to quantify the frequency of health outcomes and their associations with exposures of interest in a given population. We discuss the main types of epidemiological study designs and their potential sources of bias. We also introduce fundamental concepts of causality and discuss whether causal effects can be assessed in a given epidemiological study.

Learning Outcomes

At the end of this course, participants shall be able to:

  • Describe the frequency of health outcomes in a population
  • Assess the association between a specific exposure and a health outcome
  • Explain the differences between causal and noncausal associations
  • Critically appraise study designs and identify potential sources of bias
  • Reflect on their own epidemiological study

Topics/Content

  • Definitions & history and milestones of epidemiology
  • Demographic concepts, morbidity, mortality, case lethality, life-expectancy
  • Measures of disease occurrence
  • Measures of association & population impact
  • Error, bias and generalizability
  • Confounding, stratification, standardization, Mantel-Haenszel method
  • Life-tables, Kaplan-Meier estimator of survival function
  • Observational (e.g. case control and cohort studies) and intervention studies (randomized control trials)
  • Introduction into infectious disease dynamics
  • Internal/external validity
  • Bias in different study types
  • Concepts of causation
  • Causal effects & counterfactual framework
  • Causal diagrams: draw your assumptions

Activities / Program

Workshop style and exercises to worked on individually and in groups. Exercises may involve calculations in R

Basic information

Number E046.215.25
Dates

Mo - Fr 12.05.2025 - 16.05.2025

 
Times 09:00-12:30 and 13:30-17:00
Course location

Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine ISPM
Mittelstrasse 43,
3012 Bern

room 220, second floor

Situation plan
Lead

Ioannis Magouras, PhD, Veterinary Public Health Institute (VPHI), University of Bern
PD Ben Spycher, PhD, Judith Bouman, PhD, Veronika Whitesell, PhD
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Seats max. 25 people
Course language English
Registration deadline 29.04.2025
Format Individual event from Public Health Sciences Course Program
You will receive a certificate of attendance.
Governing Unit

Faculty of Medicine, University of Bern
Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Bern
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM)
Public Health Sciences Course Program (PHS)
ECTS info

1.5 ECTS point will be credited for this course.

For an accreditation of the ECTS, a minimum of 80% attendance and active participation incl. completion of assignments and assessments are required.

 

root number KSL: 484093
root number KSL with exam: 484093 -1

Target audience

All PhD students, Post-docs, clinicians, and public health practitioners that are interested in general epidemiology and study design.

Special

Students should bring their own laptops with installed, recent versions of R and RStudio.

Application and admission procedure

A tertiary education degree is required. The program manager decides on the final admission. Priority is given to PhD students.

Application process: You are requested to enroll online. Seats will be allocated according to date of enrolment. Three weeks before the course/workshop at the latest, the administration will decide and inform about running or cancelling the course/workshop.

Costs

Amount still open

Administrative / Payment modalities

Registration fees are waived for PhD students of the University of Bern who commit to the whole course attendance. To avoid being invoiced, it is mandatory that you indicate your institute and the matriculation number upon registration for the course. Please note cancellation regulations below.

Course fees for other participant categories:

PostDocs Uni Bern CHF 150
Other participants Uni Bern CHF 450
Participants other academic institutions 900
Other participants CHF 1260

Participants completing the entire PHS Course Program benefit from a reduction; overview course fees here.

Cancellation regulations

After the closing date for registrations, the organisers will decide whether the course can take place. The decision is based on the number of registrations.

These cancellation rules apply to PhD students of the University of Bern.

Processing fee of CHF 100 will be applied for:

  • Cancellations after 2 weeks before the first course day (late cancellations)
  • Participants with course attendance of less than 80% of the on-site course time
  • Absence on the first day of the course (considered as a late cancellation).

Course attendance must be cancelled at the latest 2 weeks before the first course day. Write an email to phs-admin.ispm@unibe.ch.
The cancellation has to be confirmed by the course coordination.
For your registration the General Terms and Conditions of the PHS Course Program apply.

Contact

University of Bern
Public Health Sciences Course Program
c/o Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM)
Mittelstrasse 43
3012 Bern
Switzerland

Tel: +41 31 684 34 04

phs-admin.ispm@unibe.ch
www.medizin.unibe.ch/phs

Registration