This is the syllabus used in conjunction with educational content offered by JHSPH. As a result, some of the information and/or materials listed here may not be relevant to or available for an OCW user's self-directed study.
Syllabus
Course Description
Introduces the basic methods for infectious disease epidemiology and case studies of important disease syndromes and entities. Methods include definitions and nomenclature, outbreak investigations, disease surveillance, case-control studies, cohort studies, laboratory diagnosis, molecular epidemiology, dynamics of transmission, and assessment of vaccine field effectiveness. Case-studies focus on acute respiratory infections, diarrheal diseases, hepatitis, HIV, tuberculosis, sexually transmitted diseases, malaria, and other vector-borne diseases.
Course Objectives
- After taking the course in Infectious Diseases Epidemiology students will be able to describe and understand the main Epidemiological characteristics of the Major infectious diseases of Humans.
- The students will be able to describe how these Epidemiological characteristics can be utilized to develop and evaluate strategies to prevent epidemics or endemic transmission of the major infections of humans.
- The students will be able to develop criteria to be used in the investigation of a new Emerging or Re-emerging Infectious disease to understand the critical Epidemiologic features of this disease that could be used to develop prevention and control programs. Epidemiological characteristics such as Incubation period, Infectious period, means of transmission and reservoir of these infectious diseases will be evaluated
Prerequisites
Knowledge of basic epidemiology
Readings
Textbook: Kenrad E. Nelson & Carolyn Masters Williams. Infectious Disease Epidemiology: Theory and Practice. Second Edition. Jones and Bartlett Publishers, 2006. This text is designed to be used in the course; book chapters have been written by the course lecturers.
Readings: Supplemental course readings and journal articles are listed on the Readings page.
Course Requirements
Short paper: Each student must select one article from a list of articles relevant to the course topic and complete a peer review on that article. The peer review should be no longer than two pages.
Midterm: The midterm consists of short answer questions and will test students on Lectures 1-10.
Final: The final exam consists of multiple choice questions and will mainly test students on Lectures 11-20. Some questions related to Lectures 1-10 may also be addressed.
Overall Grading Structure
10% - Peer review paper and participation
30% - Midterm exam
60% - Final exam
