Courses

The listing of a course description here does not guarantee a course’s being offered in a particular term. Please refer to the published schedule of classes on the MyBU Student Portal for confirmation a class is actually being taught and for specific course meeting dates and times.

• SPH EP 790: Mental Health Epidemiology
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHPH717) or SPH EP 714 - Mental Health Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of mental health disorders among populations. This course begins with an overview of the history and development of the field, also referred to as psychiatric epidemiology, using several classic studies. We will examine mental health and mental illness across the life span: child, adolescent, adult and older adult. Students will learn about the major risk factors for and etiologic models of mental disorders. This will include examination of social factors, biological factors, genetic factors and their interactions. Special attention will be paid to the unique methodological and analytical issues highlighted by mental health epidemiologic research, and recent changes to clinical and research classifications (e.g., DSM-V, RDoc). Based on the research covered in this course, students will be asked to consider the implications for public health programs and interventions.
• SPH EP 797: Concepts in the Measurement of Psychosocial Constructs
  Prerequisites: SPHPH 717 OR 714. - Many psychological, cognitive, behavioral, and social constructs are defined in ways that are not directly observable (cf. biological measurements such as white blood cell count, tumor size). As a result, there are challenges associated with measurement. Significant psychometric efforts are devoted to developing and disseminating reliable and valid measures of psychosocial constructs. As mental health and stress are now recognized as critical domains of public health, psychiatric epidemiology and other subdisciplines (e.g., social epidemiology) grapple with complex measurement problems and decisions. The goal of this course is to present an overview of psychometrics and concepts surrounding the measurement and of psychosocial constructs in epidemiology. Students will learn about gold-standard and novel assessment methods (self-report, interview, EMA), measurement theory, reliability (internal, inter-rater, test-retest), validity (e.g., structural, concurrent, criterion, predictive), and diagnostic classification procedures (e.g., ROC, clustering). Special attention will be paid to psychometric evaluation and measurement models using latent variable methods (e.g., exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis). Based on the material and research covered in this course, students will be asked to consider the implications for epidemiology and public health (e.g., best measurement practices).
• SPH EP 800: Microbes and Methods: Selected Topics in Outbreak Investigation
  Graduate Prerequisites: BS723 or BS730 completed or concurrent. - This course provides an overview of the important concepts fundamental to the understanding, design, and conduct of infectious disease outbreak investigations. The course will cover 1. The epidemiology and pathophysiology of selected infectious diseases. 2. Methodological issues related to investigating different types of outbreak. 3. Practical aspects of outbreak investigations (environmental analyses and communicating risk to the public). The course will primarily address common causes of outbreaks in this country (such as foodborne, respiratory, and hospital-based) but will touch on issues pertinent to outbreak investigations in the developing world.
• SPH EP 808: Epidemiology Excellence Research Methods Seminar
  Pre-requisite: SPHPH 717, Co-Requisite: SPHEP 813 The purpose of the Epidemiology Excellence Seminar and Fellowship is to recognize exceptionally academically strong and motivated EP/BS MPH students and encourage them to pursue advanced methods and content courses in epidemiology and biostatistics. The seminar and fellowship is designed to foster mentorship, research, and community, while also enhancing the visibility of MPH strong students. The Epi Excellence Research Methods seminar will provide additional opportunities for advanced training activities, such as a publishable data analysis project. Advanced topics in epidemiology and biostatistics, include counterfactual thinking, difference-in-differences methods, and mixed models.
• SPH EP 813: Intermediate Epidemiology
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHPH717 & SPHEP714) Can't be taken together with SPH EP 770 for credit - The purpose of this course is to further develop student's understanding of the methodologic concepts underlying the science of epidemiology. The material covered is intended to broaden and extend the student's knowledge regarding study design, bias, and inference in epidemiologic research. The primary aims of the course are to build on the concepts covered in introductory epidemiology courses, and further, to introduce students to concepts that are covered in more advanced study of epidemiologic methods. The course consists of lectures and workshop sessions. The workshop sessions are designed to reinforce the concepts covered in the lectures.
• SPH EP 816: A Guided Epidemiologic Study
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHEP714 & SPHBS723) or SPH BS 730 or SPH PH 760 or SPH BS 805 or SPH BS 835; AND consent o f the instructor. - This course prepares students to conduct original epidemiologic studies and write scholarly articles to disseminate their findings. It also equips students with skills for broader scientific communication and for reading published articles more efficiently and critically. Through lectures, discussions, written assignments, and oral presentations, students develop etiologic research questions, conduct literature reviews, perform data analyses using a real-world dataset. They will learn how to structure and write each section of a scientific manuscript and apply principles for concise and clear writing. The final project involves integrating all sections into a complete paper for journal submission. This is a two-semester course sequence. EP 816 (second half of Fall) and PH 880 (first half of Spring) together constitute a single, integrated research experience. Students enrolling in EP 816 are expected to commit to completing both semesters.
• SPH EP 818: Advanced Social Epidemiology: Theories of Disease Distribution and Health Inequality
  Prereqs: SPHEP 775. This course is designed to provide a deep dive into theories of relevance in the study of social epidemiology. Through a critical review of historical and contemporary texts, students in this course will learn the tenets of diverse theories and develop skills to engage with complex arguments related to these theories and their empirical application to epidemiologic research.
• SPH EP 819: Advanced Social Epidemiology: Methods
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHEP 775) or consent of instructor. - Methodological rigor is essential for social epidemiology to improve our understanding of social determinants of health and to inform interventions and policies that enhance health equity. Improving the methodological rigor of social epidemiologic research requires understanding the unique challenges and questions of interest in social epidemiology. This course covers key factors we need to consider to critically consume evidence from the social epidemiologic literature and to identify gaps for future research. This course is not intended to be a general epidemiologic methods course. Rather, this course provides an overview of recent discussions on methodological issues specific to social epidemiology.
• SPH EP 850: Applications of Intermediate Epidemiology
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHEP813 OR SPHEP770) and BS 723; or equivalent - This course is designed for students interested in applying their knowledge of intermediate epidemiologic methods to the statistical analysis of observational data. Topics include conceptualizing a data analysis proposal by defining a novel and addressable research question, utilizing directed acyclic graphs (DAGs) for confounder selection, choosing appropriate exposure and outcome measurements, performing statistical analysis, and interpreting the results with respect to strengths, limitations, and biases. This hands-on course will put the concepts of intermediate epidemiology into application as the students perform a research data analysis project from start to finish. Data analysis will be performed using R and/or SAS. Statistical theory will not be a focus of this course.
• SPH EP 854: Advanced Epidemiology
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH EP 770 or SPH 813; AND SPH BS 723 or SPH BS 730. - This course covers the theory and application of key principles and methods of epidemiologic research in depth. Advanced Epidemiology immerses students in the theory and application of study design and cutting‑edge methods used to understand causes of disease and evaluate evidence about those causes. Throughout the course students will explore topics such as causal models, confounding, randomization, selection bias, information bias, interaction, mediation, and the foundations of statistical and causal inference. Students learn how to ask clear causal questions that can be answered with data. The course emphasizes real-world challenges: identifying bias, assessing its impact, and employing both standard and emerging methods to reduce it. Special emphasis is given to a sharper understanding of how to interpret p-values, confidence intervals, and likelihoods, focusing on what these measures truly mean for scientific evidence and public health decisions..
• SPH EP 855: Advanced Epidemiology Seminar: Issues in Study Design
  Graduate Prerequisites: Primarily for epidemiology doctoral students. MPH, MS, and other doctoral students must have completed EP854 and have consent of the instructor. - At its essence, epidemiology comprises a set of tools for answering questions in public health. This seminar-style course, based on a guided discussion of historical and recent papers, is intended to deepen students’ knowledge of study design so that they can better recognize and hopefully either avoid or reduce the influence of common, but at times under-appreciated, sources of biases in research question formulation, measurement, effect estimation, and interpretation. We ground the course in revisiting the mission of epidemiology and surveying the theoretical frameworks that underpin research questions in public health, e.g., what gets asked, who is enrolled, what gets measured, what adjustments are made. Example topics include study efficiency, measures of effect, random error, misclassification, casual diagrams, direct and indirect effects, and collider bias. Each topic entails reading and student-led discussions of methodological papers. Students also develop skills in writing and speaking through classroom discussion, writing assignments, and a written exam.
• SPH EP 857: Design and Conduct of Cohort Studies
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHBS 723 & SPHBS 730) AND SPHEP 770 or SPHEP 813 or SPHEP 854. - This is a third-level epidemiologic methods course intended for advanced Masters and Doctoral students who desire to build depth and nuance in their understanding of cohort study design and conduct, including how to develop novel questions in existing cohort studies. This course defines cohort broadly, covering well-established cohort studies and novel cohort data sources. For each topic, methodologic readings will be linked back to concrete examples of cohort study design, with special emphasis on practicality.
• SPH EP 858: Design and Conduct of Case-Control Studies
  Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHEP 770 OR SPHEP 813 OR SPHEP 854) AND SPHBS 723 or SPHBS 730 - This is a third-level epidemiologic methods course intended for advanced Masters and Doctoral students who desire to build depth in their understanding of case-control studies. This course will develop knowledge of their design, analytic issues, challenges, and strengths, from a practical standpoint and associated theoretical framework, including identification of a study base, selection of cases and controls, collection of exposure information, consideration of sources of bias, and approaches to control for confounding. Students design their own case-control study, step-by-step in parallel with the course material. Published papers will be used to illustrate design, bias, and analytic issues through reading and discussion. Each class includes a lecture and discussion of assigned articles.
• SPH EP 859: Advanced Methods in Reproductive, Perinatal, and Pediatric Epidemiology
  This course will expand on the foundational concepts of epidemiology, epidemiologic data analysis, and introductory content in reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric (RPP) epidemiology. Students will delve into the intricacies of study design, exposure and outcome assessment, and analytic methods that deal with the unique challenges to reproductive, perinatal, and pediatric epidemiology. Most notably, the challenges that arise when dealing with two units of observation (e.g., pregnant person and fetus). Advanced methods to address bias quantitatively, including inverse probability weighting and bias analyses, will also be explored. Special considerations regarding recruitment and conduct of research among protected populations will be discussed. This course will utilize existing datasets housed with the Department of Epidemiology, including a prospective cohort of pregnancy planners, electronic medical record data of pregnant and postpartum patients, and a case-control study of risk factors for stillbirth and birth defects, to provide students with a hands-on application of epidemiologic methods. The course will culminate with a project in which students will apply advanced methods to a research question in RPP epidemiology and draft components of a manuscript in accordance with peer-reviewed publication guidelines. SAS or R proficiency is required.
• SPH EP 860: Novel Analytical Methods for Epidemiology
  Graduate Prerequisites: Students must be in a doctoral program and have completed EP854 (or equivalent from another institution) and have SAS or R programming skills equivalent to BS805 or above. This course introduces advanced causal modelling methods in data analysis, with the aim of providing students with the ability to recognize situations in which the use of such methods may be beneficial, knowledge of how to implement the methods, and an understanding of the strengths and limitations of each method. The course covers approximately 5 to 6 analytic methods in a series of 2- or 3-session modules. Topics may vary slightly in different semesters; examples include propensity scores, marginal structural models, mediation analysis, simulation methods, quantitative bias analysis, instrumental variables, regression discontinuity, machine learning and Bayesian analysis. Hands-on sessions in the classroom, homework assignments, and a final data analysis project provide students with practice in the conduct of analyses using these methods.
• SPH EP 861: Quantitative Bias Analysis Methods for Epidemiologic Research
  Graduate Prerequisites: SPH EP854 (or permission of instructor for PhD students not in the department of epidemiology).and SAS or R at the level of SPH BS805 - This course covers a novel approach to dealing with systematic error in epidemiologic research called quantitative bias analysis. Quantitative bias analysis allows users to account for sources of systematic error analytically rather than through speculation on the impact. Quantitative bias analysis allows users to make adjustments to measures of effect for confounding, information bias and selection bias by making assumptions (preferably informed by validation studies) about the nature of the bias to adjust point estimates and create uncertainty intervals that account for total study error. The course will cover three types of bias analysis: simple, multidimensional and probabilistic. Exercises in Excel and SAS/R will allow students to practice the methods, adapt them to problems they face and present the results clearly.
• SPH EP 862: Simulated Problems for Learning Epidemiology (SimPLE)
  Graduate Prerequisites: Successful completion of EP854 (or permission of instructor for PhD students not in the department of epidemiology). Competency in SAS or R as demonstrated by successful completion of EP815, EP817, BS805, - This course will challenge students to think more deeply about the epidemiologic concepts they have learned in their methods courses and provide them with the skills to conduct simulation studies to be able to further their understanding of these concepts. Students will learn to simulate datasets from a directed acyclic graph (DAG) describing the problem or phenomenon of interest and learn how to vary the parameters of the simulation to gain a deeper insight into the problem. Students will also learn to derive the answers to questions about epidemiologic methods in cases where they do not know how to solve the problem analytically. This is a hands-on course where we spend most of the time programming simulations and discussing what we learn from them and many of the questions we seek to answer are ones posed by students in class.
• SPH EP 900S: FT Doctoral Study in Epidemiology
  Doctoral Student Summer Enrollment for students engaged in coursework.
• SPH EP 905S: PT Doctoral Study in Epidemiology
  Doctoral Student Summer Enrollment for students engaged in coursework.
• SPH EP 911: Directed Studies in Epidemiology
  Directed Studies provide the opportunity for students to explore a special topic of interest under the direction of a SPH faculty member. Students may register for a 1, 2, 3, or 4-credit directed study. Arrangements are made directly with a full time SPH faculty member. Studies to be completed with an adjunct faculty member must be approved by and assigned to the Department chairperson. Students must complete a paper registration form and have a directed study proposal form signed by the faculty member with whom they are working. Section numbers are assigned by the SPH Registrar's Office. Students are limited to eight (8) credits of directed study, directed research or practicum during their MPH education.