How does EPID600 differ from other Core Certificate Program online classes?

Many of the online Certificate Program courses use weekly online quizzes. The quizzes are often multiple choice and are based on the required readings. The answers can usually be found somewhere in the weekly lecture or reading and are often verbatim quotes from the material. There is usually a single “correct” answer. Similarly, the group work focuses on fairly directed application of specific concepts to specific scenarios. This style of instruction is also common in training programs for clinicians, where there are an enormous body of factual material to learn and prescribed methods for most tasks.

In contrast, EPID600’s weekly assignments consist of case studies that require students to analyze the meaning of the questions, synthesize information from multiple sources (lecture, textbook chapters, other readings, websites, and general knowledge), and to reason and perform calculations. There is often more than one way to answer a question and there may be more than one “correct” answer. Only occasionally can a ready-made answer be found in the course materials. For a typical question, the student will need to access the correct data in the article or on-line, decide which formula or approach will work best by reading the text, the lecture, and perhaps an outside source, and interpret the results using material from one or more of these sources.

Why do we make EPID600 more difficult? The basic concepts in EPID600 may seem straightforward - just a bunch of definitions and equations to be memorized. But the apparent simplicity is deceptive. Epidemiology is in fact a very complex field, because it attempts to deal directly with real-world health questions. As an EPID600 teaching assistant observed, “Having taken EPID600 and two higher levels courses that cover the same material I am amazed at how much I still do not know.” I’ve been teaching epidemiology for nearly 30 years but still find myself puzzling from time to time about fairly basic questions. Since each set of circumstances is unique, a recurrent challenge is to decide what approach to use in any particular situation. It is through the application of the basic definitions and formulas in the case study work that you begin to understand the complexity of epidemiology, to deepen your understanding of health, disease, and the nature of data about them, and to improve your ability to decipher and find a way to proceed.

Admittedly, this kind of learning isn’t easy. But we hope at the end your assessment will be similar to this student’s: “Thanks for a tough but enjoyable course. I definitely have learned how to take more from research articles and publications - things I expect will help me as I move along in my PH career.”


EPID600/EPID160 home page
What is epidemiology?
Should I take EPID600 or a different introductory course?
Course objectives
Course content
Class times
Grading
Other resources
Information for prospective teaching assistants
[EPID160/EPID600 history]

Updated 5/27/2007vs