MSMS 250 - Epidemiology and Statistics

An online lecture course offered through the Lecturio learning platform. The course covers eleven topics, each subdivided into sections, with a total of 110 video lectures (7.5 hours of instruction). Each video is accompanied by learning assessment questions that provide immediate feedback. The course director will pace the students via the assignment feature on the platform. Optional additional reading assignments are provided for students wishing to learn more about a particular topic.

Objectives:

• Define basic epidemiological terminology, including terms associated with pandemics
• Define pertinent statistical terms and the biases that affect data/study interpretation
• Explain the various types of study designs
• Describe the concept and importance of evidence-based medicine including levels of evidence and the evidence pyramid
• Distinguish between the various measures of association
• Explain the difference between reliability and validity
• Distinguish between sensitivity vs. specificity, false positives vs. false negatives; type I vs type II errors
• Describe how research questions are framed