Journal Club "Infectious Disease Dynamics"
Lead: Prof. Nicola Low
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
This journal club introduces students to the epidemiology of infectious diseases by critically assessing published articles in the field. The goal is to promote interesting and informative discussions of recent papers covering the fields of modeling, epidemiology, biostatistics, or public health research, with a focus on infectious diseases.
Introduction to Public Health and the 4 Themes
Lead: Professor MD Matthias Egger, (ISPM), University of Bern
and lecturers from ISPM, University of Bern:
PhD Christian Althaus, PhD Ben Spycher, Professor Georgia Salanti, Professor Marcel Zwahlen,
PhD Ana Maria Vicedo Cabrera, Professor David Schwappach, Professor Annika Frahsa,
Professor MD Nicola Low, PhD Caroline Brall
Through this course (Module 1 for the PHS program), participants get an overview of the foundations of Public Health, definitions, key concepts, and its different disciplines. Participants also get a comprehensive understanding of the four themes: core methods, population health and determinants, health systems and policy and health promotion and prevention.
Projects in R
Lead: PD Christian Althaus
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Alan Haynes, PhD
CTU Bern, Department of Clinical Research (DCR), University of Bern
In this course, you will learn how to organize your projects, visualize your data, collaborate with your colleagues, and write reproducible reports for the public health sciences using the programming language R, RStudio and GitHub.
Basic Biostatistics in R
Lead: PD Ben Spycher
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Beatriz Vidondo, PhD
Veterinary Public Health Institute (VPHI), University of Bern
In this course, you will learn basic statistical methods that are widely used in biostatistical research.
One Health
Lead: PD Salome Dürr, Ioannis Magouras, PhD
Veterinary Public Health Institute, University of Bern
PD Anou Dreyfus, Veterinary Faculty, University of Zurich
One Health is an approach that aims to find integrated and sustainable solutions on complex problems affecting the health of people, animals and ecosystems, and generating an added value for each sector. In this course, the concepts of One Health will be learned, including theory and exercises applied to concrete examples (e.g. zoonoses, antimicrobial resistance, non-communicable diseases).
Basics of Ethics in Health Sciences Research
Lead: PhD Priya Satalkar, course coordinator
Guest Professor, Ghent University, Belgium
PhD Agomoni Ganguli Mitra
Mason Institute, University of Edinburgh Law School
PhD MD Sven Trelle
Clinical Trials Unit CTU, University of Bern
This course provides an introduction to ethics and scientific integrity in health sciences research.
Introduction to Epidemiology and Study Design
Lead: Ioannis Magouras, PhD, Veterinary Public Health Institute (VPHI), University of Bern
Ben Spycher PD, PhD, Judith Bouman, PhD, Veronika Whitesell, PhD
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
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.
Writing a Journal Article… and Getting it Published
Lead: Professor MD Nicola Low
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine, ISPM, University of Bern
This course is about the processes of writing and getting published. Students will bring an article that they are actually working on for a truly hands-on experience.
Diagnostic Test Evaluation
Lead: Prof. Sonja Hartnack, Section of Veterinary Epidemiology, Vetsuisse Faculty, University of Zurich
In this course, you will learn the basic concepts of diagnostic test evaluation with examples from human and animal health. Furthermore, we will focus on the interpretation of diagnostic test results and the reporting of diagnostic test accuracy studies.
Legal Aspects of Public Health
Lead: Professor Franziska Sprecher, Specialist for Constitutional and Administrative Law with emphasis on Health Law
Institute of Public Law, University of Bern
This Module 2 course provides an introduction to the relevance of law to public health. Law and politics form the framework for public health measures, because state measures always need a legal basis. How does law emerge and what is the role of politics and policy? What are the international and national legal authorities and what is the significance of law for policy and practice?
Prognostic Research: Concepts and Models
Lead: Professor MD Matthias Egger, Professor Georgia Salanti, Orestis Efthimiou, PhD
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Prognosis is the probability that a specific event will occur in the future. Prognostic Research is fundamental to clinical decision making, healthcare policy, and discovering new approaches to patient management. In this course we describe the basic concepts used to develop, validate, and implement a prognostic model in clinical practice and discuss how a web-based calculator might be constructed to give a useful decision-making tool. In addition, we consider the reporting and impact of prognostic models and how the quality of prognostic research might be improved in order that prognostic information may be translated into clinically useful decision tools.
Participatory Research Approaches
Lead: Professor Annika Frahsa, MD Myrofora Goutaki, PhD
Institute of Social an Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
The Module 2 course will introduce participants to basic principles of patient and public involvement in health research, discuss important aspects of participatory research and provide insights into selecting suitable approaches for different study designs and topics.
How to Organize and Finance Health Systems
Lead: Professor Marcel Zwahlen
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Professor Michael Gerfin
Department of Economics, University of Bern
Health systems are differently organized in the rich and the less rich countries. The health system organizes the “market” of health care providers and how the payment of health care is divided among the government, insurance companies, and private out-of-pocket payments. In this Module 2 course you will encounter the variety of these organizational aspects and dive into the fine details of the Swiss system of with a “managed competition” at the levels of health care providers and health insurance companies. Important contributors to variation in delivered and “financially covered” care will be discussed, as well as the foundations of decision making from the perspective of economic theory.
Introduction to Public Health and the 4 Themes
Lead: Professor MD Matthias Egger, (ISPM), University of Bern
and lecturers from ISPM, University of Bern:
PhD Ben Spycher, Professor Georgia Salanti, Professor Marcel Zwahlen,
PhD Ana Maria Vicedo Cabrera, Professor David Schwappach, Professor Annika Frahsa,
PhD Caroline Brall, Professor MD Nicola Low
Through Module 1, participants get an overview of the foundations of Public Health, definitions, key concepts, and its different disciplines. Participants also get a comprehensive understanding of the 4 themes: core methods, population health and determinants, health systems and policy and health promotion and prevention.
Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis: A Practical Approach
Lead: Professor MD Matthias Egger, PhD Orestis Efthimiou, Professor Georgia Salanti
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
As part of their PhD, many students will have to do one or several systematic reviews, and some students will also want to combine results from several studies in meta-analysis. This intensive 3-day course will cover the principles and practical steps of systematic reviews, including the design and conduct of comprehensive literature searches, data extraction and presentation, assessment of bias in the included studies, synthesis of data and examination of publication bias and other biases. The statistical methods for combining results in meta-analysis will also be covered and the course will include practical exercises in R.
Linear and Logistic Regression Modelling in R
Lead: PD Ben Spycher, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Beatriz Vidondo, PhD, Veterinary Public Health Institute (VPHI), University of Bern
This course provides an introduction to regression modeling in public health sciences. Participants will learn the basic theoretical concepts and how to apply regression modelling in the context of their research. The course will focus on models for continuous (linear regression), binary (logistic regression), and categorical outcomes (multinomial and ordered logistic regression). Practical examples and exercises in R will accompany the course, enabling participants to apply the learned concepts effectively. Prior completion of the 'basic statistics and projects in R' and 'introduction to epidemiology and study design' courses (or similar courses) is recommended as they provide essential foundational knowledge for the course.