Epidemiology Courses

Fundamentals of Epidemiology (Spring)

Maternal and Child Health Leadership Collaborative Seminar (Fall)

Overview of Children with Special Healthcare Needs (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisite: EPI/GH/BSHE/HPM 596, students enrolled in the MCH certificate only or instructor permission. This course will provide a one-semester overview of children with special health care needs and their families, including neurodevelopmental disabilities, to prepare learners to include the population in public health program planning, implementation, evaluation, and research.

Introduction to Genetic and Molecular Epidemiology (Fall)

Introduction to Transforming Public Health Surveillance (Fall)

Issues in Women's Health (Fall)

Case Studies in Infectious Disease (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisites/concurrent: EPI 504 or EPI 530 and BIOS 500 or permission of instructor. Provides training in the investigation, control, and prevention of infectious diseases by both descriptive and analytic epidemiological techniques. Students work with infectious diseases of national and international interest. Cross-listed with GH 517.

Practical Introduction to Survey Design

Spring, not offered every year. This short course is a practical introduction to survey research, seeking to provide students with hands-on skills to develop and implement electronic surveys. In the course, students will work in teams to develop and launch a survey, with the following phases: item development, item cognitive assessment, electronic survey programming, survey recruitment on Facebook (each team will have a recruitment budget), collection of survey data from online participants, and presentation of survey results. The course focus is predominantly on electronic survey provision, including web-based implementations. Other areas of emphasis include item creation, item optimization through qualitative techniques, sources of survey error, and strategies to mitigate survey error.

Correctional Healthcare EPI (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisite: EPI 530 or EPI 504 and BIOS 500, or instructor permission. Ten million persons pass through a jail or prison each year in the United States. This half-semester, seminar-style course explores the possible impact of the criminal justice system on the epidemiology of infectious diseases and on health indicators in general. The correctional setting will be used as a case study to illustrate how environment, public policy, behavior and biology all interact to determine the well-being of a population. Lessons learned from studying correctional health are applicable to understanding the determinants of health for other institutionalized populations and in other controlled settings.

Epidemiologic Methods I (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisite/concurrent: BIOS 500. The course introduces the basic concepts and premises of the science of epidemiology. The description of techniques for quantifying disease occurrence (or other health indicators) in the population is followed by the discussion of epidemiologic study designs and measures of associations. The concepts of random variability, bias, and effect modification are also examined. 

Field Epidemiology (Winter)

Epidemiology of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (Spring)

Fall. Prerequisite/concurrent: EPI 504 or EPI 530. The purpose of this course is to familiarize students with the current purview of sexually transmitted disease in the developing and industrialized world, and to stimulate thinking about the appropriate public health approaches to prevention and control. Cross-listed with GH 550.

Programming in SAS (Spring)

Spring. Required for epidemiology majors. This is an applied computer course that provides an introduction to the SAS programming environment and instructs students in the techniques needed to enter data into a database and to properly organize and edit data into a final dataset that is ready for epidemiologic analysis.

Statistical Programming (Fall)

This is an applied computer course that provides an introduction to the SAS and R programming environment and instructs students in the techniques needed to enter data into a database and to properly organize and edit data into a final dataset that is ready for epidemiologic analysis. Mastery of SAS and R programming techniques at the level required to proficiently organize and clean data for the epidemiology thesis project. The class will focus on database manipulation and will not cover statistical testing.

Spring. Prerequisite: EPI 530. The primary objective of this course is to gain basic knowledge and skills needed to develop and conduct studies up to the point of conducting primary data analysis.

Applied Data Analysis (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisites: EPI 504 or EPI 530, BIOS 500. The purpose of this course is to prepare the student for analysis of epidemiologic data from various study designs including cross- sectional, case-control, and follow-up studies. The student will have the opportunity to apply the methods taught in the epidemiology methods sequence to actual data sets. After completion of the course, the student will be prepared to do the data analysis for their thesis. The course will use the statistical program, Stata, for all analyses and therefore some time will be spent in learning the fundamentals of Stata. We will analyze multiple data sets and apply epidemiologic and statistical methods such as exact tests for 2x2 tables, stratified analysis, logistic regression, and survival techniques appropriate for epidemiologists. The course will be applied and will emphasize the use of Stata to solve various epidemiologic problems using a wide range of data sets.

Epidemiology of Chronic Disease (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisite/concurrent: EPI 530. Emphasizes the distribution and determinants of chronic disease within the population. Research design and analysis are not the primary focus of the course, but methodological issues are considered when pertinent to the interpretation of findings.

Advanced Epidemiological Methods I (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisites: EPI 530, EPI 534, BIOS 500, BIOS 501 or BIOS 591P (EPI 534 and BIOS 501 may be taken concurrently with permission). Covers a wide variety of topics in epidemiological methodology. Topics include basic epidemiological measures, confounding, misclassification, selection bias, types of case-control studies, Berkson’s bias, matching, and estimation of epidemiological parameters. This course is cross-listed with EPI 738. Note: this course will be offered for the last time in Spring 2020 for MSPH students matriculating prior to Fall 2019.

Epidemiologic Method II (Spring)

Hospital/Healthcare Epidemiology (Spring)

Tuberculosis: A Re-emerging Health Problem (Spring)

Cardiovascular Disease Epidemiology (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisite: EPI 504, or EPI 530. The goal of this course is to use cardiovascular disease epidemiology to foster the student’s ability to critically read the pertinent epidemiologic literature and synthesize research questions pertinent to the filed. The course surveys selected CVD topics to illustrate the application of epidemiologic concepts to both clinical cardiology and public health.

Epidemiology of Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisite/concurrent: EPI 504 or EPI 530. Covers the basic epidemiology of infectious foodborne and diarrheal diseases of the United States and the world. Uses the study of these diseases and outbreak investigations to develop broadly applicable epidemiologic skills. Explores dynamic relationship between changing global environment and human health—evolving and emerging pathogens, changes in food production and distribution, and changes in the human population.

Advanced Epidemiologic Methods II (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisites EPI 530, BIOS 500, EPI 534, and BIOS 591P concurrent. MSPH and PhD students only. ​This course builds on the fundamental epidemiologic concepts introduced in EPI 530: Epidemiologic Methods I. Specifically, causality, bias (including confounding, information bias, and selection bias), and concepts of interaction will be revisited in greater depth. By the end of the course, students will be able to do the following: Formulate research questions to evaluate causality; evaluate the strengths and limitations of epidemiologic studies; assess how the strengths and limitations of a study affect interpretation of study results; utilize epidemiologic methods to address confounding; identify epidemiologic methods to address selection bias and information bias; calculate measures to assess interaction.

HIV Epidemiology (Spring)

Public Health Applications of Molecular Epidemiology (Spring)

Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisites: EPI 530 and BIOS 500. The course introduces the basic concepts and premises of the systematic reviews and meta-analyses of epidemiologic studies.

Human Genome Epidemiology (Spring)

Spring. This introductory course will expose students to a range of topics that illustrate the use of epidemiologic methods to analyze and interpret genomic information at the population level through a combination of lectures, weekly reading assignments, and student-led case studies. At the end of the course participants should be able to identify the types of data needed to translate genetic discoveries for medicine and public health and be able to review and evaluate such data in the scientific literature.

Writing and Presenting Epidemiologic Research (Fall)

Religion & Public Health
(Fall or Spring, May not be offered every year)

Applied Genomic Epidemiology (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisites: BIOS 500 and EPI 552 or instructor permission, Knowledge of R is preferred. Genomic epidemiology is an increasingly important approach to studying disease risks in populations. This course will introduce the basic genetic principles as they apply to the identification of genetic variations associated with disease; illustrate the population and quantitative genetic concepts that are necessary to study the relationship between genetic variation and disease variation in populations; and provide hands-on experience to address the analytical needs for conducting genomic epidemiologic research. Students will gain experience with R and PLINK using high dimensional genetic data.

Global Issues in Antimicrobial Resistance (Spring)

Advanced Designing and Implementing Epidemiologic Studies

Spring. The primary objective of this course is to gain advanced knowledge and skills in designing and implementing epidemiologic studies. The emphasis of the course is on the knowledge and skills needed to develop and conduct studies up to the point of conducting primary data analysis.

Epidemiologic Methods IV (Spring)

Spring. Pre-requisites: EPI 530, BIOS 500, EPI 534, EPI 545, BIOS 591P, and EPI 550. This course covers epidemiologic concepts in further depth than previous methods courses and provides an overview of advanced topic in the analysis of epidemiologic data. The course builds on the concepts and tools introduced in other Epi methods courses early in the series. This is a required course for students in the MSPH Epidemiology program, usually taken during the second year.

EPI 561 (2)

Obesity Epidemiology (Fall or Spring)

Emerging Infectious Diseases
(Spring)

Public Health Preparedness and Bioterrorism (Fall)

Fall. Acquaints students with major topics associated with natural and man-made public health emergencies, including major weather events, bioterror events, pandemic scenarios, and other chemical, biological and radiological events. Includes activities such as table top exercises and discussions of the societal, legal and ethical implications of planning for and responding to major public health emergencies. Students become knowledgeable in the planning considerations for major public health emergencies at multiple levels of public health. Cross-listed with GH 564.

Data Sources and Methods in MCH Epidemiology: An Introductory Course in Applied MCH Epidemiology (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisites: EPI 530 and BIOS 500. This course introduces students to data sources and methods commonly used by epidemiologists in state or provincial health departments. Data sources include: vital statistics, census, population-based surveillance, and surveys (e.g. PRAMS). Methods include record linkage, trend analysis, bias in MCH research, cluster investigation, small area analysis, and secondary data analysis. Although an introductory course, EPI 530 and BIOS 500 are prerequisites. Because students learn hands-on techniques, laboratory exercises will be used to supplement class sessions.

Immunization Programs and Policies (Spring)

Spring. Provides an introduction to the entire spectrum of vaccines and immunization: from basic bench research through testing, licensure, and use; program design, implementation, and evaluation; and social, economic, and political factors affecting the use of vaccines. Emphasizes the international setting, though examples are also taken from developed countries. Cross-listed with GH 566.

Epidemiology of Aging Populations (Spring)

Spring. This course introduces the student to the epidemiology of aging populations, including distributions of and trends in chronic disease morbidity and multimorbidity; non-disease specific issues in aging, such as functional disability and mortality. The course will focus on methods for epidemiologic research in aging population, which will be reinforced through weekly readings and group discussions of relevant literature.

Bias Analysis (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisites: EPI 530 and EPI 540 or 545 or instructor permission. Observational epidemiologic studies yield estimates of effect that differ from the true effect because of random error and systematic error. Epidemiologists design studies and analyses to minimize both sources of error. When presenting results, epidemiologists use statistics to quantify the impact of random error on estimates of effect, but often only qualitatively describe residual systematic error (uncontrolled bias). Bias analysis provides one method of quantifying residual systematic error. Students in this course will learn how to use simple, multidimensional, and probabilistic bias analyses to account for systematic error in their estimates of effect. Students should expect to gain new skills, as the emphasis of the course will be on the implementation and conduct of bias analysis, rather than statistical theory.

Concepts and Methods in Infectious Disease Epidemiology

Fall. Prerequisites EPI 517, EPI 530, and EPI 540 or instructor permission. The course will provide an overview of the history, concepts and analytical methods that specifically apply to the study of infectious diseases. The course covers a range of methodological approaches and concepts for infectious disease epidemiology including natural history, household transmissions studies, concepts of dynamic modeling, sero-epidemiology vaccines and vaccine epidemiology, molecular epidemiology and pathogen strain dynamics, and emerging infectious diseases.

Infectious Disease Dynamics: Theories and Models (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisite: Knowledge of R via RSPH courses or independent learning prior to beginning of class is required. This course will present the conceptual theory, mathematical framework, and computational tools to conduct mechanistic modeling of infectious diseases.

Epidemiology of Cancer (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisite: EPI 504 or EPI 530 or permission of the instructor. The primary objective of this course is for the student to gain basic knowledge about cancer and issues and methodologies relevant to investigating cancer etiology, prevention, and control using epidemiologic methods. Secondary objectives are for the student to gain experiences in critiquing published cancer epidemiology articles and conducting a literature review and writing a summary of a topic in cancer epidemiology.

Advanced Topics in Cancer Epidemiology (Spring, may not be offered every year)

Spring. Prerequisites: EPI 504 or EPI 530 and EPI 584 or instructor permission. The primary objective of this course is for the student to gain comprehensive knowledge about cancer and methodologies and current issues central to cancer epidemiology. The course builds on knowledge gained in other courses (including EPI 584) and covers the biological basis of carcinogenesis and its implications for epidemiologic research, an integrated view of current issues central to cancer epidemiology, an in-depth examination of methodological issues relevant to cancer research, and integration of knowledge across cancer sites. Secondary objectives are for the student to gain experiences in critiquing published cancer epidemiology articles and writing a short proposal on a topic related to current issues in cancer epidemiology.

Psychosocial Epidemiology (Fall)

Spring. Prerequisites: EPI 504 or EPI 530. Epidemiology is the study of the distribution and determinants of disease. Psychosocial Epidemiology is a growing subfield of Epidemiology that examines how psychological and social factors influence physical health and disease in human populations. Because the field of Psychosocial Epidemiology is heavily influenced by observational data, the concepts of confounding, mediation and effect modification will be emphasized throughout the course.

Epidemiology Seminar (Spring)

Fall and Spring. Various topics by Epi faculty. Recent topics include: Sleep Epidemiology, Measurement in Epidemiologic Studies, Prediction Research, Epidemiology of Respiratory Infections, Concepts and Methods in Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Concepts and Applications in Spatial Epidemiology, and R Bootcamp for Epidemiology.

Methods in Nutritional Epidemiology (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisites: EPI 530 or EPI 504 or instructor permission. This course is designed for students interested in studies of diet and health outcomes. The course provides an overview of methods for estimating dietary intakes. Issues related to the collections, processing, analysis and manipulation of dietary data in relation to foods dietary patterns, nutrients, and dietary supplements will also be addressed. Students will also have the opportunity to apply methods for manipulating dietary data including variation in diet, comparing methods for energy adjustment, manipulating raw data to create food grouping variables for dietary pattern analysis and calculating a dietary score.

Social Epidemiology (Fall, Spring)

Fall and Spring. Prerequisites: EPI 504 or EPI 530. This course will focus on the contribution of social factors to health and disease in human populations. With an emphasis on both theory and methods, seven topics of contemporary interest to public health research will be covered in depth: (1) social status; (2) race, ethnicity and racism; (3) geography/place; (4) immigration; (5) health literacy; (6) stress; and (7) social support.

Methods in Advanced Social Epidemiology (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisites: INFO 530 or INFO 532, EPI 550, and EPI 591S or BSHE 535 or instructor permission. This advanced graduate course is a blended seminar and lab format introducing students to some of the challenges of quantitative research in modern social epidemiology. With a focus on application, the course explores the intersection of social epidemiologic theory and quantitative methods for better understanding multilevel causal mechanisms, complex social selection and confounding, and the spatial patterning of exposures, covariates and health outcomes.

Applied Practice Experience (Fall, Spring, Summer)

Fall, Spring, Summer. An Applied Practice Experience (APE) is a unique opportunity that enables students to apply practical skills and knowledge learned through coursework to an applied professional public health setting that complements the student’s interests and career goals through a supervised field training experience in a professional public health work environment. The APE must meet Rollins guidelines and have departmental approval. In order for a student to successfully complete the APE requirement, they must have a minimum of 200 clock hours in one or more public health agencies, institutions or communities, competency attainment and 2 deliverables. In addition to registering for the course, all APE details, deliverables and approvals are required to be entered and tracked in the Rollins APE Portal.

Foundations in Maternal and Child Health (Spring)

Spring. This is the foundational course for the Maternal and Child Health Certificate and is limited to MCH certificate students. It covers historical and theoretical underpinnings of maternal and child health problems and programs aimed to reduce morbidity, mortality, and health disparities. Skills in program planning and evaluation are taught through multidisciplinary teams working with academic and field-based faculty in local, state, federal, and nongovernmental agencies. Maternal and child health is defined as a field of public health that addresses underlying forces for these problems, the historical framework for ameliorating those problems, and current programs and policies that have evolved from that historical context. Maternal and child health programs are unique to reproduction and life course development; more common in women, infants, children, or adolescents; more serious in women, infants, children, or adolescents; or have manifestations, risk factors, or interventions that are different in women or during life course development.

Directed Study

Provides the opportunity to pursue a specialized course of study in an area of special interest. Complements rather than replaces or substitutes for coursework.

MPH Capstone

Spring. This course provides an opportunity for students to apply the epidemiologic and biostatistical skills that they obtained during their coursework to real-world public health data. Students are presented a problem or research question from a public health organization along with available data that can be used to address the question(s) at hand.

MPH Thesis

Fall, Spring, Summer. Students prepare a monograph that embodies original research applicable to public health. This incorporates a hypothesis that has been successfully evaluated with appropriate statistical and epidemiological techniques, and is potentially publishable and has public health impact.

MSPH Thesis

Grant Writing (Spring)

Spring. PhD students only. Provides an opportunity to apply information learned in methods and substantive courses to the very practical task of gaining funding for research projects.

Analytical Foundations of Epidemiology (Spring)

Spring. PhD students only. Designed specifically for Epidemiology PhD students to learn statistical theory in the context of epidemiologic concepts and examples. The aim of the course is for students to understand the theories that underlie the statistical techniques used in epidemiologic research, and to enhance critical thinking and integration of this material with broader epidemiologic principles.

Advanced Epidemiologic Methods I (Spring)

Spring. PhD Student Section. Prerequisites: EPI 530, EPI 534, BIOS 500, BIOS 501 or BIOS 591P (EPI 534 and BIOS 501 may be taken concurrently). Covers a wide variety of topics in epidemiological methodology. Topics include basic epidemiological measures, confounding, misclassification, selection bias, types of case-control studies, Berkson’s bias, matching, and estimation of epidemiological parameters. Cross-listed with EPI 538.

Note: This course will be offered for the last time in Spring 2020 for PhD students taking the qualifying exam no later than June 2020.

Epidemiologic Methods V (Fall)

Fall. PhD students only. Prerequisite: EPI 530, EPI 534, BIOS 500, EPI 545, EPI 550, and BIOS 510 (may be taken concurrently). Permission required. Deals with a variety of topics in quantitative epidemiological methodology. Topics include concepts of study design and the relationship to hazard rates and ratios, conditional logistic regression, polytomous logistic regression, continuation odds ratio models, and Poisson regression.

Note: This course will be offered in the Spring beginning Spring 2021.

Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisites: EPI 530 and EPI 540 or 545 or permission of instructor. A survey course to review the current knowledge about various topics related to factors that affect pregnancy outcome. Introduces methodologic issues that are specific to these studies. Methodologic issues are addressed in the context of choosing study design options and evaluating current research, including choice of study populations, prevalence issues, selection issues, confounding, misclassification, and etiologic heterogeneity.

Reproductive Epidemiology (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisite: EPI 504 or EPI 530. Reviews the epidemiology of human reproductive function and the methodologic issues involved in studying reproduction. Topics include male and female infertility, pregnancy loss, the impact of infectious diseases on reproduction, contraceptive efficacy, unintended pregnancy, and environmental and occupational impacts on reproduction.

Advanced Environmental Epidemiology (Fall)

Fall. Prerequisites: EPI 530, EPI 540 or 545, BIOS 500, and BIOS 501 or 591P or permission of instructor. Explores design and analysis issues specific to occupational and environmental epidemiology. Case studies representative of a variety of exposures, outcomes, and study designs are used to illustrate the application of epidemiological principles to the study of exposures occurring in the workplace and in the general environment.

Analysis of Longitudinal Data in Epidemiological Research (Spring)

Spring. Prerequisite: EPI 530, EPI 533 or EPI 534, EPI 550 or EPI 740, and BIOS 500, BIOS 501 or 591P. Permission required. Offers methods for analyzing longitudinal data sets to evaluate epidemiological research involving relationships between exposure and disease variables.

Note: This course may not be offered in Spring 2021.

Doctoral Seminar in Epidemiologic Practice (Fall, Spring) 

Fall, Spring. PhD students only. Presents discussions by invited guests, faculty, and students of special topics and research findings.

Fall, Spring, Summer. PhD students only. Provides the opportunity to pursue a specialized course of study in an area of special interest. Complements rather than replaces or substitutes for course work.

Fall, Spring, Summer. PhD students only. Dissertation research.

Fall, Spring, Summer. PhD students only. Dissertation research.