Advanced Research Methods

Description

This course addresses the methodological issues crucial to the wide range of epidemiologic applications in public health and medicine. It covers a broad range of concepts and methods, including modern study designs, epidemiologic measures of association and impact, causal inference, methods of handling confounding, methods of identifying effect modification, measurement error and information bias, and validity and reliability. The main objective of the course is to enhance a student’s ability to design and conduct unbiased and efficient health research studies.

Learning objectives

By the end of this course, the participant will be able to:

1. Understand the strengths, limitations, and principles of different modern study designs
2. Identify and interpret effect modification
3. Identify potential sources of selection and information bias and understand how to control bias by appropriate study design
4. Identify potential sources of confounding and understand how to address confounding in the design and analysis of epidemiological studies
5. Explain commonly used considerations for causal inference and models of causality
6. Understand the concepts ‘validity’ and ‘precision’, ‘random’ and ‘systematic measurement error’, ‘differential’ and ‘non-differential misclassification’, and the use of validation and reproducibility studies for epidemiological research

Course Outline

1. Review of epidemiologic study designs
2. Modern analytical study designs
3. Measures of association and measures of impact
4. Causation and Causal Inference
5. Threats to validity and issues of interpretation
   1. Lack of validity: Bias
   2. Noncausal associations: Confounding
   3. Defining and assessing heterogeneity of effects: Interaction
6. Dealing with threats to validity
   1. Stratification and Adjustment
   2. Quality Assurance and Control
7. Design strategies to improve study accuracy

Training Delivery Methods

1. In-class method
2. Online method