EPIDEMIOLOGICAL & POPULATION METHODS

INTRODUCTION

Epidemiology plays a crucial role in understanding disease patterns, risk factors, and public health interventions. Through descriptive, analytical, and interventional study designs, epidemiological methods provide insights into disease causation, prevention, and treatment effectiveness.

This one-day course provides a comprehensive overview of epidemiological methods, including study design strategies, statistical measures of risk and association, bias and confounding, standardization techniques, and screening test performance. Participants will engage in practical applications, including calculating prevalence, incidence, relative risk, odds ratios, and screening test sensitivity and specificity. The session will also introduce methods for sample size and statistical power calculations for case-control studies.

This John Varlow | Training and Consultancy course will cover:

✔ Understanding descriptive epidemiological study designs (Correlational, Case Study, Case Series, Cross-Sectional)
✔ Exploring analytical epidemiological study designs (Case-Control and Cohort)
✔ Introduction to interventional epidemiology and Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs)
✔ Understanding the impact of chance, bias, confounding, and effect modification on study results
✔ Learning how to stratify data to adjust for confounding
✔ Understanding cause-effect relationships and assessing strength of association, biological credibility, time sequence, and dose-response
✔ Calculating prevalence, incidence, crude and category-specific rates
✔ Applying direct and indirect standardization techniques
✔ Understanding and calculating Relative Risk (RR) and Odds Ratios (OR) for different study designs
✔ Exploring Standardised Mortality Ratios (SMR) and Proportional Mortality Ratios (PMR)
✔ Measuring association through Relative Risk Reduction (RRR), Attributable Risk (AR), Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR), and Numbers Needed to Treat/Harm (NNT/NNH)
✔ Applying Chi-Square tests and interpreting associated p-values
✔ Calculating confidence intervals for Relative Risk
✔ Performing sample size and statistical power calculations for case-control studies
✔ Understanding screening tests, disease nature, and their role in public health
✔ Calculating Sensitivity, Specificity, Predictive Positive and Negative Values (PPV, NPV) for screening tests
✔ Understanding ROC (Receiver Operating Characteristic) curves for optimizing sensitivity and specificity

COURSE OBJECTIVES

By the end of this one-day course, participants will:

✔ Understand the different epidemiological study designs and their applications
✔ Learn how to calculate and interpret epidemiological measures such as prevalence, incidence, and risk ratios
✔ Recognize and adjust for bias, confounding, and effect modification in studies
✔ Perform direct and indirect standardization of epidemiological data
✔ Apply Chi-Square tests, confidence intervals, and other statistical tools in epidemiology
✔ Understand and perform sample size and power calculations for case-control studies
✔ Learn how to evaluate and optimize screening test performance using ROC curves

TRAINING METHODOLOGY

This session is interactive and application-focused, blending theory with practical epidemiological techniques. Participants will:

✔ Work with real-world datasets to apply epidemiological methods
✔ Perform calculations for prevalence, incidence, risk measures, and screening test accuracy
✔ Engage in discussions on study design strengths, weaknesses, and limitations
✔ Learn best practices for standardization, stratification, and sample size determination

By the end of the session, participants will have a practical understanding of epidemiological methods and be able to apply them in public health and research settings.

WHO SHOULD ATTEND?

This course is ideal for professionals working in public health, medical research, and epidemiology who need to analyze health data, assess disease risk, and design epidemiological studies. It is particularly relevant for:

✔ Public Health & Epidemiology Professionals studying disease patterns and interventions
✔ Medical & Clinical Researchers conducting population-based studies
✔ Policy Makers & Public Health Officials interpreting epidemiological data
✔ Healthcare & Pharmaceutical Analysts assessing risk factors and treatment effectiveness
✔ Data Scientists & Statisticians working with health-related data

Pre-requisites:

✔ Basic numeracy skills
✔ Familiarity with basic statistics is recommended but not required

COURSE OUTLINE

1. Introduction to Epidemiological Study Designs

✔ Overview of descriptive study designs (Correlational, Case Study, Case Series, Cross-Sectional)
✔ Understanding analytical study designs (Case-Control and Cohort)
✔ Introduction to interventional study designs and Randomised Controlled Trials (RCTs)

2. Measuring Health Outcomes & Risk

✔ Understanding prevalence and incidence rates
✔ Calculating crude and category-specific rates

3. Understanding and Controlling for Bias & Confounding

✔ Recognizing bias, effect modification, and confounding in studies
✔ Using stratification and standardization to adjust for confounding

4. Epidemiological Measures of Association

✔ Understanding Relative Risk (RR) and Odds Ratios (OR)
✔ Exploring Standardized Mortality Ratios (SMR) and Proportional Mortality Ratios (PMR)
✔ Calculating Relative Risk Reduction (RRR), Attributable Risk (AR), Absolute Risk Reduction (ARR), and Numbers Needed to Treat/Harm (NNT/NNH)

5. Statistical Methods in Epidemiology

✔ Applying the Chi-Square test and interpreting p-values
✔ Calculating confidence intervals for Relative Risk

6. Sample Size & Statistical Power in Case-Control Studies

✔ Understanding sample size considerations in epidemiological research
✔ Performing sample size and power calculations for case-control studies

7. Screening Tests & Performance Measures

✔ Understanding screening test necessity and disease nature
✔ Calculating Sensitivity, Specificity, Positive Predictive Value (PPV), and Negative Predictive Value (NPV)
✔ Introduction to ROC curves for optimizing sensitivity and specificity

DURATION

⏳ 1 Day

This session provides a comprehensive and practical introduction to epidemiological methods, equipping participants with the skills to analyze population health data and interpret epidemiological study results effectively.

CERTIFICATION

Upon successful completion of this course, participants will receive a John Varlow | Training and Consultancy Certificate of Completion.