California State University, Northridge Final Exam Link
Department of Health Sciences
Hsci 587-Seminar in Epidemiology for Health Educators
Fall 2003
Professor Jane Rosenblatt; email: jane.rosenblatt@csun.edu
homepage: www.csun.edu/~hchsc007
Office: EN2238: Phone: 677-3050
Office hours: Mon 3:00-4:00; Tue 2:00-4:00; Thur 10:00-11:00

COURSE OUTLINE

Purpose of Course

The purpose of this course is to introduce Health Education and Health Administration graduate students to basic and advanced concepts in Epidemiology. This course will provide a forum for critical evaluation of the relevant current literature linking Health Education and Health Administration to appropriate epidemiologic methods. The students will examine the relationship between social epidemiology and lifestyle diseases. Upon completion of this course, students should be intelligent consumers of epidemiologic methods and assessment techniques and should be able to delineate the collaborative relationship between epidemiology and health education.

Course Objectives

Upon completion of this course, the student should be able to:

Apply basic and advanced epidemiologic methods for health education and health administration problems
Delineate between appropriate and inappropriate uses of epidemiology for health education
Describe how social problems impinge on lifestyle diseases
Apply epidemiologic methods for health education assessment and program planning
Describe the relationship between epidemiology and health education

Course Text

Epidemiology, Kenneth J. Rothman, 2002
Reading package to be purchased at the Matador Bookstore (RP)

Supplemental Texts

Epidemiology: Beyond the Basics, Moyses Szklo and F. Javier Nieto, 2000
Methods in Observational Epidemiology, Jennifer Kelsey et al., Oxford University Press
Case-Control Studies, James Schlesselman, Oxford Press

Readings from the following journals:

American Journal of Epidemiology
American Behavioral Scientist
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
American Journal of Public Health

Method of Grading

Students will be graded for the following:

Classroom participation during the semester: 10 points
1 paper: 100 points
4 oral presentations: 10 points each (total of 40 points). Please hand in a short typed outline of the information you present to the class. You will be graded on coverage of the topic (5 points), ordering of the information (3 points), presentation (1 point) and outline (1 point).
Final: 100 points

Students will research many of the topics given in the outline. You will be asked to go to the Internet and look up the topic either on the web or from the library. On the day the topic is scheduled, each student will make a presentation to the class on that subject. The first topic will be screening tests. You should choose a disease and 1) describe the distribution both nationally and internationally 2) describe the time, place and person for the disease and give some background of the disease itself and 3) describe the screening test used for the disease and the validity of the test.

For all assignments, discuss the relevance of the information to Health Educators.

I will be discussing most of what is in the texts in class. The remainders of the topics are listed in the outline below. The assignments and dates may be subject to minor changes.

Please inactivate all cell phones and pagers while in class.

COURSE OUTLINE

Week	Topic
8/26-9/2	Descriptive Epidemiology and Measuring Occurrences of Disease Chapters 1,3 Reading package 100-109; 116-117
9/9	Screening Tests and relationship to the Health Educator (Choose a disease and find the appropriate screening test. Report the information to the class on 9/17) Ch 11
9/16	Study Designs and reports Chapters 4,5; RP 374-386
9/23	Statistics and Transmission of Diseases (Choose an infectious disease and describe how it is transmitted and the measures for prevention. Present to class on 9/24) chapters 6,7: RP 227-268
9/30	Causality and Assessment Chapters 2,8,9
10/7	Demography and relationship to the Health Educator and Health Administrator, (Choose a country and describe the population distribution by age, gender and other factors on 10/15.)
10/14	Fundamentals of Epidemiologic data analysis; Investigation of outbreaks. (ch 3): RP 289-327, 347-374
10/21-10/28	Advanced Epidemiologic data techniques; Meta Analysis ch 10
11/4	Role of social epidemiology. (Choose a disease and describe the life style factors, which may affect the development of this disease.)
11/11	More about Social Epidemiology and lifestyle diseases. Reports due from previous week.
11/18	Epidemiology and program planning. Bringing it together.
11/25-12/2	Class presentation of papers
12/9	Final Exams Due

PAPER

You are responsible for setting up a program (either health education or health administration) for a chronic disease.

1) Describe the occurrence of the disease. (5 points)

2) Discuss factors involved in the development of the disease, including lifestyle. (15 points)

3) Discuss major areas where information about prevention of the disease is lacking (20 points)

4) Determine the type of study design that would be useful in determining who is at high risk for the disease? Why? (10 points)

5) Design the study (20 points)

6) What type of program would you establish to try to prevent the disease in those at high risk? Discuss the program in detail. (20 points)

7) Oral Presentation (10 points)