Tomey Group - Neighborhood Environment and Health

Courses

EPID503 Strategies and Uses of Epidemiology
Winter term(s)
3 Credit Hour(s)
Instructor(s): Kardia, Sharon; Adar, Sara; Lisabeth, Lynda; Tomey, KT
Offered every year
Last offered Winter 2013
Prerequisites: Biostat 503, Grad Status
Description: This course offers an introduction to the principles, concepts, and methods of population-based epidemiologic research. It is intended to be the introductory course for students who are NOT majoring in Epidemiology. The course will be divided into three primary sections. The first section will serve as an introduction to the basic principles of epidemiology and the measures used in epidemiology. The second section will discuss epidemiologic study design (including case-control, cohort studies) and analysis (including bias, confounding, effect modification). The third section will cover special topics that are important to an introductory understanding of epidemiology (including outbreak investigations, screening, and the role of epidemiology in public health.

EPID552 Epidemiology of Chronic Diseases
Fall term(s)
3 Credit Hour(s)
Instructor(s): Tomey, KT
Offered every year
Last offered Fall 2011
Not offered 2012-2013
Prerequisites: EPID 600
Description: This course uses a data-driven approach to assess the health status of populations, with students preparing and comparing health and demographic data collected from local health jurisdictions, the state of Michigan and the U.S. as a means of learning the Epidemiology of selected chronic diseases and conditions, e.g. heart disease, diabetes, cancer, and musculoskeletal diseases. Students are teamed with local public health practitioners who help provide the context for students to develop grants applications to address those chronic diseases which have been identified through the comparative data analysis as important and for which the student has learned the underlying biology and Epidemiology

EPID652 Applied Analysis of National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) Data
Winter term(s)
2 Credit Hour(s)
Instructor(s): Tomey, KT
Last offered Winter 2012
Not offered 2012-2013
Prerequisites: Biostat 510 and Biostat 523, and permission of the instructor
Description: This course provides an overview of nationally representative datasets (e.g. NHANES, BRFSS) and provides an introduction to specialized software procedures and statistical approaches used for the analysis of complex sample survey data. Students will develop research papers by identifying and refining research questions, evaluate those questions using data from NHANES, and then draw conclusions from their findings.
Course Goals: The course has three main goals: 1) familiarize students with national datasets that include health and other relevant data for epidemiologic study; 2) teach students how to work with complex sample survey data using SAS and other software applications with an appreciation of the general underlying statistical approaches used for estimates from these survey data; and 3) Develop a research paper describing a research question, results and discussion of those results.
Learning Objectives: Three learning objectives include: 1) learn about national health monitoring and resources available to inform trends and associations; 2) access and analyze complex sample survey data; and 3) develop a research paper that includes a hypothesis, descriptive statistics, associations, as well as discussion of those results.
Competencies: Students will complete the course with an understanding of the information available in large national datasets, how to analyze these data to taking into account the features of a complex sample design, how to conceptualize and refine and research question, how to analyze this question, how to present research findings, and how to draw appropriate conclusions from their results.