NS 6580 - [Advanced Epidemiology: Theory and Practice]

Fall. 3 credits. Letter grades only.

Prerequisite: BTRY 6030  or equivalent. Next offered 2014-2015. (Offered alternate even years) Enrollment limited to: graduate students who have completed NS 6520  and all other requirements of obtaining a Minor in Epidemiology, Namely BTRY 6010 , BTRY 6020 .

S. Mehta.

This course will use a combination of lectures and discussions with ‘hands-on’ laboratory sessions as a method to learn about nutritional epidemiology. Students should be able to apply the methods learned in this class and gain proficiency in designing, conducting, and analyzing nutritional epidemiology studies. Broadly, the topics that will be covered would guide the design of research projects, and include data management and data analysis as it pertains to nutritional data, errors in nutrition assessment, biomarkers of nutritional status or outcome, methods of energy adjustment, anthropometry, and body composition, CDC and WHO growth charts, propensity scores, genetics and gene-environment interactions in nutritional epidemiology, measurement and analysis of physical activity, translating conceptual models into statistical models and dealing with confounders, mediators, endogenous variables, and multilevel models, working with large samples, and longitudinal analysis for analyzing the relationship between diet and disease.

Course will build:

• Cognitive skills - skills for critical thinking and quantitative literacy; visual literacy and analysis; capacity to create knowledge; creative problem solving; reflection on professional practice.
• Interpersonal skills - leadership and innovation; teamwork and cooperation; oral and written communication.
• Interdependence and social responsibility - sense of community, interdependence, and service; ethics; appreciation of diversity and how concepts of human difference are created; ability to manage diverse and changing social, technological  and material environment.