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.

Ziele

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

Inhalte

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

Arbeitsweise / Programm

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

Basisinformationen

Nummer	E046.215.25
Termine	Mo - Fr 12.05.2025 - 16.05.2025
Zeiten	09:00-12:30 and 13:30-17:00
Kursort	Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine ISPM Mittelstrasse 43, 3012 Bern room 220, second floor Situationsplan
Leitung	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
Plätze max.	25 Personen
Kurssprache	English
Anmeldefrist	29.04.2025
Format	Individual event von Public Health Sciences Course Program You will receive a certificate of attendance.
Trägerschaft	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

Zielpublikum

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

Besonderes

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

Anmelde- und Aufnahmeverfahren

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.

Kosten

Amount still open

Administratives

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.

Annullierungsbestimmungen

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.

Kontakt

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