Module MA1610-KP06

Applied Biostatistics and Epidemiology (BiostatEp1)


Duration

2 Semester

Turnus of offer

each year, can be started in winter or summer semester

Credit points

6

Course of studies, specific fields and terms:

  • Master Infection Biology 2023, compulsory, Interdisciplinary modules
  • Master Infection Biology 2018, compulsory, Interdisciplinary modules

Classes and lectures:

  • Part A: Applied Biostatistics (exercise, 1 SWS)
  • Part B: Epidemiology (lecture, 2 SWS)
  • Part A: Applied Biostatistics (lecture, 3 SWS)

Workload:

  • 90 hours private studies
  • 90 hours in-classroom work

Contents of teaching:

  • Part A: Applied Biostatistics
  • Descriptive statistics
  • Inferential statistics (estimation and testing)
  • Comparison of central tendencies
  • Association and correlation
  • Regression analysis (linear and logistic)
  • Introduction to statistical programming
  • Practical application of statistical methods
  • Part B: Applied Epidemiology
  • Introduction to epidemiology
  • Measures of frequency (incidence, prevalence, etc.)
  • Medical diagnosis (sensitivity and specificity, etc.)
  • Epidemiology of infectious diseases
  • Outbreak investigation
  • Causality
  • Study designs (randomised controlled trial, cohort study, case control study, cross sectional study)
  • Random error, bias and confounding
  • Critical appraisal

Qualification-goals/Competencies:

  • Part A: Applied Biostatistics
  • Students are able to understand, explain and interpret results from common statistical analyses
  • Students are able to choose adequate statistical methods for a given research problem
  • Students are able to conduct basic statistical analyses using pen-and-pencil and statistic software. They are able to write answer sentences by applying the definition of the calculated measure to their result.
  • Part B: Epidemiology
  • Students are able to understand, explain and interpret epidemiological measures and other results from epidemiological research
  • Students are able to understand and explain technical terms used in epidemiology
  • Students are able to choose adequate study designs for given research problems and discuss their advantages and limitations (including possible sources of error, bias and confounding) and
  • Students are able to judge if results from a particular study are valid or biased and what can be concluded from them (for example in terms of causality)
  • Part A and B
  • Soft skills: The students' communication competencies and capacity to team work should be increased by means of small group discussions

Grading through:

  • Oral examination

Responsible for this module:

Teacher:

Literature:

  • Bland : An Introduction to Medical Statistics 4th edition - Oup Oxford, 2015
  • Field, Miles : Discovering Statistics Using R. Sage Publications, 2012
  • Fletcher & Fletcher : Clinical Epidemiology. The Essentials. 5th edition Philadelphia: Wolters Kluwer/Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2014

Language:

  • offered only in English

Notes:

Admission requirements for taking the module:
- None

Admission requirements for participation in module examination(s):
- None

Module Exam(s):
If both partial examinations have been successfully passed, the final grade will be awarded based on the total percentage of points achieved
- MA1610-L1: Applied Biostatistics, oral exam (winter semester), 30 min, 50% of final module grade
- MA1610-L2: Epidemiology, oral exam (summer term), 30 min, 50% of final module grade

Last Updated:

29.07.2022