(annually)

This course is designed to teach epidemiology students the statistical principles of analysis specific to pharmacoepidemiology study designs including the use of propensity scores, inverse probability weighting, instrumental variables and time varying covariates. Each of the twelve sessions includes both a lecture component and a laboratory component. Students will learn the statistical principles and then apply them to example study datasets. Students must participate in all sessions and must have previously completed biostatistics for epidemiologic methods I and II (EPID 5260 A/B and 5270 A/B). Laboratory sessions will be conducted on students’ laptops using STATA software.

This course is designed to provide background and guidance on writing and submitting NIH grants. Students will submit a mini-protocol proposal at the beginning of the term. Each protocol will be reviewed by a group of 3 students from the class and scores will be given. The final project will be a full NIH protocol proposal ready for submission.

The first half of this course will cover graphical methods, probability, discrete and continuous distributions, estimation, confidence intervals, and one-sample hypothesis testing. Emphasis is placed on understanding the proper application and interpretation of the methods. The second half of this course will cover two-sample hypothesis testing, nonparametric techniques, sample size determination, correlation, regression, analysis of variance, and analysis of covariance. Emphasis is placed on understanding the proper application and underlying assumptions of the methods presented. Laboratory sessions focus on the use of the STATA statistical package and applications to clinical data.

The first half of this course covers concepts in biostatistics as applied to epidemiology, primarily categorical data analysis, analysis of case-control, cross-sectional, cohort studies, and clinical trials. Topics include simple analysis of epidemiologic measures of effect; stratified analysis; confounding; interaction, the use of matching, and sample size determination. Emphasis is placed on understanding the proper application and underlying assumptions of the methods presented. Laboratory sessions focus on the use of the STATA and other statistical packages and applications to clinical data. The second half of this course covers concepts in biostatistics as applied to epidemiology, primarily multivariable models in epidemiology for analyzing case-control, cross-sectional, cohort studies, and clinical trials. Topics include logistic, conditional logistic, and Poisson regression methods; and simple survival analyses including Cox regression. Emphasis is placed on understanding the proper application and underlying assumptions of the methods presented. Laboratory sessions focus on the use of STATA and other statistical packages and applications to clinical data.

This course provides an introduction to the fundamentals of research in clinical epidemiology. It covers definitions of epidemiology; measures of disease frequency; measures of effect and association; epidemiologic study designs, including randomized clinical trials, cohort and case-control studies, cross-sectional surveys, and meta-analysis; and an overview of the conduct and analysis of epidemiologic studies. The course is composed of a series of 2-hour lectures and in-class lab sessions, designed to reinforce concepts introduced in the lectures.