Epidemiologic Measures and Surveillance

This unit develops core epidemiologic skills for describing and protecting populations. Students learn to analyze demographic and rate data, implement surveillance and screening, and apply prevention frameworks, causality tools, and ethical considerations. The unit connects environmental and time-related factors to public health practice and prepares learners for applied outbreak investigation and intervention planning.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze demographic and population data to identify at-risk groups and compute crude morbidity, crude mortality, population pyramids, and other commonly used epidemiologic rates
• Apply surveillance and screening methods by distinguishing types of surveillance, conducting step-by-step case detection, and assessing screening programs for validity (sensitivity/specificity) and ethical considerations
• Demonstrate knowledge of prevention strategies by differentiating primary, secondary, and tertiary prevention, creating vaccination plans for children, and evaluating vaccine-preventable cancer interventions
• Evaluate causal relationships and study designs using Hill’s criteria and Rothman’s causal pie, conduct a cross-sectional study with attention to confounding and time factors, and synthesize environmental and climate impacts on population health