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Introduction to Food Safety Epidemiology
Prerequisite: None
"I keep six honest serving
men (they taught me all I knew). Their names are what, why and when and
how, where and who" - Rudyard Kipling
Epidemiologists are the sleuths who study health and disease in populations.
They investigate the distribution (who, when, where) and determinants
(why, what, how) of health events in populations, for the ultimate purpose
of improving health.
This course teaches you how to correctly utilize epidemiological terminology
and how to apply principles and basic statistical tests commonly used in epidemiology. It
explains how to recognize and describe the features, strengths and weaknesses
of the basic epidemiological study designs and how to be able to apply this
knowledge to critical evaluation of the biomedical literature. A class
exercise uses the fundamental tools of epidemiology to participate in a computer
simulation of a food-borne illness outbreak investigation.
The Introduction to Food Safety Epidemiology course is ideal for anyone who
desires a well rounded understanding of public health assessment; works in
disease prevention or health promotion; relies on the results of epidemiological
studies that are used to measure or describe public health risks; or works
with epidemiologists, clinicians, statisticians, sanitarians, toxicologists,
or risk assessors
Overview of Topics
Rates and Measures
- Measuring Morbidity
- Standardization and Adjustment of Rates
- Prevalence
- Incidence
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Measures of Association
- Establishing Association
- Odds Ratio
- Relative Risk
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Understanding Chance, Bias, and Confounding
- Chance
- Validity
- Sources of Bias
- Confounding
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Intro to Study Design
- Descriptive Studies
- Analytic Studies
- Specific Study
Types
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Using and Understanding the Scientific Literature
- Terminology
- Basic Statistics
- Deriving Probabilities
- Causality
- Sensitivity and Specificity
- Research Ethics
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Introduction to Disease Surveillance
- Attributes of Surveillance Systems
- Uses of Surveillance
- Analysis of Surveillance Data
- Active vs. Passive Surveillance
- Case Definitions
- Evaluation Methods
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Learning Objectives
After completing this course, students will be able to:
- Understand epidemiologic terms and concepts
- Utilize epidemiologic rates
to measure disease
- Identify appropriate study design employment
- Explain the relationship
of association and causation
- Mitigate effects of bias and confounding
on results
- Describe the elements of good data management
- Discuss the fundamentals
of disease surveillance
- Effectively and critically utilize biomedical
literature
- Outline the elements of epidemiologic investigations
- Conduct a simulated
outbreak investigation
This course meets a requirement of the JIFSAN Epidemiology/Toxicology Track Certificate.
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