LI Course
CE Hours: 6 contact hours

Statement of Purpose and Institute Overview: Despite the availability of more than 60 introductory and intermediate epidemiology text books (I have 23 of these books), my extensive personal experience in both academic and community settings has shown that 1)defining and measuring epidemiologic concepts are often complex and ambiguous, although these concepts are not uncommon. As a result, their appropriate application in professional practice are often confusing, time intense and over-burdening, if not intimidating, even among highly motivated practitioners. 2)there is a lack of structured, brief but very basic epidemiology course for the field practitioner and undergraduate students who may be motivated to pursue careers in public health/epidemiology 3)formal epidemiology course in academic setting is mostly lengthy and may be unaffordable to a public health practitioner who needs to learn salient epidemiologic concepts for routine, everyday professional practice Objectives The primary objective of this 2-day learning institute (LI) is to provide participants an opportunity to define and discuss basic epidemiologic concepts, tools and methods for novice participants who wish to formulate them to their professional practice in their community. This year’s focus will be to evaluate existing data to conceptualize and validate measures of health disparity among population subgroups and their implications. Participants will gain knowledge and insight to differentiating program evaluation and evaluating research using a variety of models and scenarios of health disparity data. A secondary objective is to assess and analyze the student’s gained knowledge of the basic epidemiologic concepts, tools and methods thru pretest and post-test modules and therefore differentiate progress made within the purview of the 2-day LI. Our tertiary objective is to evaluate how the student can apply learnt epidemiologic concepts and interpret epidemiological findings in their professional practice thru group exercises and case studies, in-class reporting and participants’ discussion of findings. To the best possible extent and within time limits, each concept will be accompanied by examples of relevant local, regional, national and international data for familiarization and application of epidemiologic principles. Sessions are highly interactive and allow participants to clarify epidemiological concepts and measures. Feedbacks from past sessions have been extremely helpful in re-developing practice sessions for application and interpretation of complex but essential epidemiological measures. In-class group exercises and discussions will provide insight into problems and dilemmas faced by practitioners in addressing community issues of their interest.

Session Objectives: By the end of the Day 2 of the APHA-LI, participants will be able to: Identify and define the concepts of a) study designs for epidemiologic investigation, b) measures of association and risk assessment, c) threats to validity in risk-outcome assessment and ways to address them, d) evidence based public health practice, e)community based practice, f) translating epidemiologic findings to public health policy List and discuss how to measure and interpret these concepts and apply them to professional career Illustrate, calculate, and compare the differences among concepts thru examples Design, and evaluate investigations which use the above concepts

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH) , Masters Certified Health Education Specialist (MCHES)