SPH Debuts First All-Digital Winter Institute.
In January, the School of Public Health’s lifelong learning initiative, Population Health Exchange, will offer PHX Winter Institute 2019 as its first digital-only continuing education program. Similar to the PHX Summer Institute, the PHX Winter Institute will offer an array of short, immersive programs open to professionals of all sectors and fields—but these programs can be completed entirely online, with no need to trek through frigid conditions to attend class.
The PHX Winter Institute will offer three programs in which participants of all public health levels can gain career-enhancing skills, from data analysis to the development of evidence-based interventions.
The first program, “Engage and Inspire Your Audience with Story Maps,” is a one-day workshop in which participants can learn how to showcase data and maps with multimedia content to assess disease surveillance, public safety, and other public health issues. The class will be taught by T. Scott Troppy, a surveillance epidemiologist at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.
“Introduction to Geographical Information Systems (GIS) with ArcMAP” is a one-day introductory mapping workshop for GIS users who will learn how to communicate data with mapping, and develop geographical datasets and spatial data presentation. Kevin Lane, associate professor of environmental health, will lead the course.
The third program, “Essentials of Biostatistics with JMP®”, is an eight-week non-credit course that offers a comprehensive introduction to the use of biostatistics in public health. Participants will compute and interpret descriptive and inferential statistics using SAS JMP®, and they will also study confidence intervals, probability, and linear and logistic regression. The program contains self-paced lessons with video, interactive activities, and weekly live office hours with instructor Lisa Sullivan, associate dean for education and professor of biostatistics.
Leslie Tellalian, director of lifelong learning, says that Population Health Exchange was created after many SPH alumni expressed a desire to return to the school for ongoing learning opportunities.
“We have had a number of SPH alumni participate in our programs, and it is important to us to ensure we keep providing strong, career-enhancing options, oftentimes taught by their favorite past faculty,” Tellalian says. “We have also been fortunate to attract professionals beyond SPH, and even beyond the field of public health. We want to continue building all of these relationships and continue expanding our reach through channels such as our online offerings.”
The school will continue to gauge the interests and needs of participants to ensure they are offering the right variety of in-person and online PHX courses in the winter and summer. Past programs have welcomed participants from across the country and around the world.
Lane says he is impressed by the expansion of spatial research from when he taught GIS and geocoding to small research groups in India and South Korea.
“I am excited to teach my first formal online GIS course and see the spread of knowledge and integration of GIS by working with a diverse group of alumni, health professionals, students, and researchers,” he says.
Each of the PHX Winter Institute programs begin on January 7, and the eight-week biostatistics course ends on March 1. The deadline to register is December 21.