IEDP 527 Epidemiology and Public Policy

The purpose of this course is to familiarize and engage students in the dynamics of policy and economic development that addresses disease or the health status of the population. Effective policies include actions that enable policy goals to be achieved and therefore, should include a means of translating policy decisions into effective programs. Policies that have not been realized through program implementation represent failures and should stimulate interest in understanding why the policies remained barren. In this course, the student will define the problem with respect to "who, what, when, where and why" to determine whether the problem requires a policy solution. If yes, the student will determine the best options using the integral approach, will determine stakeholders, supporters of the policy, the cost of implementing the policy and the expected impact of the policy. The course builds on the basic principles and concepts of epidemiology from IEDM 521 that relates to the design, analysis and interpretation of epidemiological studies. Students are expected to understand and apply measures of disease incidence and prevalence (e.g. risk, rate, odds) and measures of effect (e.g. relative and absolute risk). Students should also be able to demonstrate an understanding of the basic principles underlying different study designs and interpret epidemiological data, to critically interpret evidence and assess causality.

Credits

3

Prerequisite

Open to graduate students in the IEDM and IEDP programs and undergraduates who have taken ECON 101, ECON 102, and ECON 223