Course Content (List of the topics/subtopics to be covered in the lectures/practicals/assignments)

• Definition and objectives of epidemiology: Principles and methods of epidemiology to investigate disease distribution. Using epidemiologic methods to study the cause, extent and prevention of various infectious and non-infectious diseases.
• Dynamics of disease transmission: modes of transmission, attack rate, disease outbreak investigation.
• Disease surveillance and measures of morbidity and mortality: Active and passive surveillance, emergency warning systems, stages of a disease, incidence and prevalence of disease, mortality rates, case fatality.
• Assessing screening tests: Validity of tests, Tests with binary and continuous outcomes, sequential testing, sensitivity and specificity measures.
• Different types of study design, including randomized trials, case-control and cohort studies, risk estimation and causal inferences.
• Epidemiology and the development of policy.

References

• Gordis, Leon. Epidemiology. Fifth edition. Philadelphia, PA: Elsevier Saunders, 2014.
• Rosner, B. Fundamentals of biostatistics. Belmont, CA: Thomson-Brooks/Cole, 2006.