Study Design in Clinical Epidemiology

This course can be used as part of the research training for Epidemiologist (A/B) 
This course is primarily intended for Research Master students, therefore only a limited number of spots is made available to PhD students.

In this course the principles and practice of epidemiological research are taught. The emphasis in this course is on study design. A distinction is made between theoretical design including design of the research question and operational design comprising data collection and data analysis. The dichotomies in the classification of (clinical) epidemiologic research, i.e. observational / experimental, cohort / case-control, cross-sectional/ longitudinal and their relevance to epidemiologic research will be discussed. A further distinction will be made between etiologic studies including intervention studies (clinical trials) and predictive studies (diagnostic and prognostic studies). Issues of validity and precision will be extensively addressed. Lectures will be combined with exercises using current examples of epidemiological studies on mostly chronic diseases. Reviewing recently published studies with different study designs is an important part of this course. The aim is to provide the participants with the knowledge to evaluate and judge epidemiological research and data analysis, and give a sufficient scientific and methodological background to actively participate in epidemiological studies.

Material
Rothman KJ. Epidemiology. An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
Second Edition 2012. Chapters 1, 3-5, 7-8, 10-12. (OR: Rothman KJ. Epidemiology. An Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University.

Examination
Exam is compulsory. Open book exam with assignments based on recently published epidemiological studies on chronic diseases.

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