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Public Health Information

Competency 5: Obtain, evaluate, and interpret public health information

  1. Interpret epidemiology measures
    1. Define and contrast crude and adjusted disease rates
    2. Define exposure and outcome in a study and set up a 2x2 table to show the relationship between exposure and outcome
    3. Identify the difficulties in concluding that a given exposure causes an outcome of interest
    4. Define confounding and identify its presence in a study
    5. Define and interpret epidemiological measures of association such as relative risk, odds ratio, attributable risk, population attributable risk, standardized mortality ratio, proportional mortality ratio
    6. Define and interpret basic descriptive epidemiology measures such as prevalence, incidence, case fatality, mortality
  2. Design a study
    1. Define and identify different study design types (such as, cohort, case-control, cross-sectional, ecologic, randomized trial, systematic review, meta-analysis)
    2. List the common sources of information used to characterize the descriptive epidemiology of a disease and some strengths and limitations of those information sources
    3. Compare the strengths and weaknesses of different study designs (such as, cohort, case-control, cross-sectional, ecologic, randomized trial, systematic review, meta-analysis)
    4. Identify differences between observational/descriptive and experimental studies
    5. Choose an appropriate study design for a given research question
    6. Identify appropriate subjects for a given research question and study design
    7. Define and compare/contrast the strengths and weaknesses of prospective and retrospective study designs
    8. Identify the essential elements of randomized controlled study design
    9. Describe the advantages of randomized controlled trials in assessing new interventions
    10. Identify common problems with the interpretation of randomized controlled trials
  3. Understand Bias
    1. Identify sources of bias in a given study
    2. Identify sources of bias in a survey instrument
    3. Explain the importance of and differences between validity and generalizability of a study
    4. Define and contrast the terms: validity, reliability, precision and accuracy
  4. Identify and distinguish concepts in biostatistics
    1. Define and interpret basic biostatistical measures such as the mean, median, confidence interval, p-value
    2. Define and recognize the three major types of systematic distortion in study designs (information bias, selection bias, confounding)
    3. Define and interpret basic biostatistical measures such as the mean, median, confidence interval, p-value
    4. Identify when it is appropriate to use a chi-square test, t-test, correlation or linear regression
    5. Describe the concept of statistical power in research studies
    6. Define type I and type II error
  5. Apply epidemiological information
    1. Read and interpret graphics describing disease patterns in populations
    2. Identify the proper techniques for evaluation of a health services program
    3. Use a statistical program and interpret output
    4. Describe the most prevalent diseases in your community in terms of: patterns, etiology, risk factors, clinical aspects, and prevention and control
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