Graduate Prerequisites: (SPHPH717) or consent of instructor. “Climate change, demographics, water, food, energy, global health, women’s empowerment –these issues are all intertwined. We cannot look at one strand in isolation. Instead, we must examine how these strands are woven together.” —Ban Ki-moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations This is a graduate level course that introduces (a) core quantitative methods used in population health science and demography, (b) common applications of these methods in public health, (c) designing and conducting original studies using the population health science toolkit, and (d) application of these tools in research dissemination, public health advocacy, and community partnerships. Demographic and population health science methods underpin and complement approaches from epidemiology and biostatistics. This methods course is designed to give you firsthand experience in applying tools from the quantitative population sciences in order to help you develop an interdisciplinary skillset to solve complex problems in public health. The course begins by introducing core concepts in population health science and demography including mortality, fertility, morbidity, population age and sex structure, population growth, birth cohorts, and migration. This foundation will provide you with a working knowledge of key concepts, terms, and measures from the field to understand the methods you will be learning. Much of the course is then devoted to an in-depth introduction to the primary methods, tools, and data used in the population health sciences, such as age standardization, life tables, decomposition, estimation of population attributable risks, analysis of excess mortality, forecasting, indirect estimation methods, and methods for evaluating data quality. Through completion of your coursework, you will develop and demonstrate proficiency in demographic methods, tools, and data in a variety of use cases. The remainder of the course is devoted to applications and dissemination of research methods to contemporary challenges in public health. The course will specifically explore the utility and implications of quantitative population science methods for health equity and community engaged research. This will include exploration of how these methods can be utilized to better understand population inequities and ways that quantitative findings generated through these methods can be effectively disseminated and used in public health advocacy. You will emerge from this course with a toolbox of quantitative methods from the population health sciences. You will also develop proficiency with commonly used databases in the population health sciences that are not as commonly used in other disciplines, including data from the American Community Survey, the Public Use Microdata Sample, the National Vital Statistics System, and linkages of survey data to the National Death Index. The course will consist of assigned readings, lectures, class discussion, hands-on problem-sets, and a cross-cutting group project in which students will gain experience with these methods. R Studio will be the primary statistical software used for cleaning and analyzing data through in-class examples, problem sets, and course deliverables. PH 717 (or equivalent) will provide the basic skills needed. You will gain additional proficiency in R.

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