Epidemiology - Introduction

Introduction to epidemiology.
Measuring diseas. Validity and reliability.
Estimating disease occurence.
Observational and experimental study design.
Random errors. Confounders.
Measuring associations.
Models for adjusting.
Introduction to critical reading.

Upon completing the course, students should:
-know the application of and be able to distinguish between basic study designs relevant for population based and clinical research (cross sectional, cohort, case control, as well as randomised studies).
-know how to interpret and measure disease occurrence (prevalence, incidence density and incidence proportion).
-know how to interpret and measure the association between exposure and disease such as risk difference and relative risk (risk ratio, rate ratio, odds ratio).
-understand and be able to identify common problems in epidemiological studies like selection bias, information bias and confounding.
-be able to understand the terms causality and statistical association, and the difference between them.

This course will be teached only at Kathmandu University (KU), Nepal. As part of a cooperation between NTNU and KU.5 days intensive course, lectures and group work, 35 hours
Self-study of course litterature and exam preparation, 40 hours