Winter 2021
| Line Number | Section ID | Credits | Days/Times | Room/Bldg | Instructor |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 14595 | A | 3.0 | Monday, Wednesday @ 11:30am - 12:50pm | N/A | Anjum Hajat |
For a complete listing of Epidemiology courses, their elective categories, and when they are typically offered, please see the Epidemiology Course Planning Sheet
Additional Course Details
This 3-unit credit/no-credit course will explore study design and analytic issues applicable to research on the social determinants of health (SDH) and health disparities.
Topics Covered
- Conceptual models
- Study design
- Measurement of socioeconomic status
- Ecologic studies
- Multi-level studies
- Longitudinal studies
- Network analysis
- Marginal structural models
- Mediation analysis
Learning Objectives
- List at least 4 approaches to assessing causality and explain their strengths and weaknesses when applied to the SDH
- Construct a framework depicting the relationship between social factors and health outcomes based on an underlying conceptual theory in the field
- Develop a conceptual model to accurately and parsimoniously reflects the core factors related to a social factors influence on health and that presents a testable pathway for a hypothesis
- Identify the key features of traditional and non-traditional epidemiologic study designs to test hypotheses related to the SDH
- Distinguish between SDH research questions with 2 or more units of analysis (multi-level) and those with a single unit of analysis and compare and contrast the interpretation of the results
- Compare and contrast individual and group level measures of the same SDH construct, and describe the relationship between them
- List, describe and compare the advantages and limitations of commonly used measures of SES in SDH research.
- Describe the strengths and the inherit limitations of ecologic data and its analysis and list methods to decrease the likelihood of biased results
- Apply the concept of multi-level analyses to space-dependent and time-dependent SDH data structures and describe their appropriate statistical models
- Demonstrate competence interpreting statistical output for ecologic, multi-level, and longitudinal analytic approaches
- Describe the application of network, marginal structural models, and mediation analyses to SDH research
- Understand how inverse probability weights are constructed and can be applied to SDH research
- Critically review the published literature addressing the SDH and provide a methods-based critique of the scientific approach
- Convey in writing the basic concepts and understandings of SDH research methods through 3-page critique of a journal article
Course Format
Lectures and class discussion, class participation, journal article critique, homework
Contact the Instructors
Anjum Hajat (anjumh@uw.edu)
Nicholas Smith (nlsmith@uw.edu)
