Book Club “Nutritional Epidemiology"
Lead: MD PhD Patricia Chocano-Bedova
Institute of Primary Health Care (BIHAM), University of Bern
This course is aimed at PhD students interested in the complex relationship between diet and disease as well as other PhD students interested in other modifiable lifestyle exposures or other associations between exposure and disease that could be affected by diet.
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.
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.
Qualitative Health Research – Living Lab I: Data Analysis
Lead: Professor Annika Frahsa, Professor Sofia Zambrano (shared coordination)
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
This Module 2 course is directed towards everyone conducting qualitative health research. In this living lab, we will not talk about how to do QHR but rather we will do it and train ourselves in the practices of analysis, interpretation and reflexivity – skills essential for high quality research but too often neglected in project work, doctoral studies, or studies alongside daily tasks.
Qualitative Health Research – Living Lab II: Writing Club
Lead: Professor Annika Frahsa, Professor Sofia Zambrano (shared coordination)
Bivens Kristin Marie, PhD
Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
This Module 2 course is directed towards everyone who conducts and writes up qualitative health research.
Introduction to Public Health and the 4 Themes
Lead: Professor MD Matthias Egger, (ISPM), University of Bern
and lecturers from ISPM and BIHAM, 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 Reto Auer, PhD Caroline Brall, Professor MD Nicola Low
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.
Health Economic Analyses of Single Health Interventions
Lead: Dr. Klazien Matter-Walstra, Leiterin Sektion Health Technology Assessment, Bundesamt für Gesundheit (BAG)
This course provides an primer to cost-effectiveness analyses (CEA) of single health care interventions (pharmaceuticals, procedures, etc.), and introduces other types of analyses such as cost-benefit and cost-utility (CUA). Participants get to know methods, types of analyses, and aspects to be considered in performing a CUA. Approaches to present and appraise results including CUA in Health Technology Assessment (HTA) will be given.
Hot Topics in Health Care Research
Lead: Professor David Schwappach, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Primary Care: Professor MD Sven Streit
Berner Institut für Hausarztmedizin (BIHAM), University of Bern
Nursing: Professor Sabine Hahn
Bern University of Applied Sciences (BFH)
Palliative Care: Professor Sofia Zambrano and Professor MD Steffen Eychmüller
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Safety: Professor David Schwappach
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Have you ever wondered about the complexities of health care, either as patient, relative, or professional? In this Module 2 course you will dive into four specific, important areas of health care. You’ll discover how health policy, law and financing shape health care systems, their organization and outcomes. Applied to specific examples, you learn which specific methods are used to study health care.
Cancer Epidemiology and Control
Lead: Professor Marcel Zwahlen, MD Eliane Rohner
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
This 3-day Module 2 course introduces students to important concepts in cancer epidemiology such as cancer registration, statistics, etiology, risk factors, and prognosis. The course will focus on the cancer burden in Switzerland but also discuss cancer epidemiology internationally. Furthermore, the public health approaches to cancer control will be covered (primary prevention, screening, equity in access to established treatments). Lung, colon, and cervical cancer will serve as “case studies” for this course.
Basic Statistics and Projects in R
Lead: PD Christian Althaus, PD Ben Spycher
Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
Alan Haynes, PhD, CTU Bern, University of Bern
Beatriz Vidondo, PhD, Veterinary Public Health Institute (VPHI), University of Bern
In this Module 2 course, you will learn how to organize your projects, visualize your data, collaborate with your colleagues, and write reproducible reports using the programming language R, Rstudio and GitHub. Once familiar with R, you will learn the basics of descriptive analyses and inferential statistics that are used in biostatistical research.
One Health
Lead: PD Salome Dürr, Ioannis Magouras, PhD
Veterinary Public Health Institute, University of Bern
Anou Dreyfus, PhD, 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).
Introduction to Epidemiology and Study Design
Lead: Ioannis Magouras, PhD, Veterinary Public Health Institute (VPHI), University of Bern
Ben Spycher PD, PhD, Christian Althaus PD 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 Module 2 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
PD Christian Althaus, Institute of Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
In this Module 2 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.
Introduction to Public Health and the 4 Themes
Lead: Professor MD Matthias Egger, (ISPM), University of Bern
and lecturers from ISPM and BIHAM, 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 Reto Auer, 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.
Qualitative Health Research – The Essentials
Lead: Professor Annika Frahsa, Professor Sofia Zambrano (shared coordination)
Institute for Social and Preventive Medicine (ISPM), University of Bern
This Module 2 course is directed towards everyone interested in qualitative health research. In each session, we will discuss landmark methodological papers as well as empirical studies to understand the essentials of qualitative health research.