Epidemiologic Investigation and Prevention

This unit applies core epidemiologic methods to real-world public health problems, emphasizing study design, measurement of disease frequency, surveillance, outbreak investigation, and prevention strategies. Students will practice data interpretation, recognize and mitigate bias and confounding, and implement infection control and communication procedures that support community and clinical public health actions.

Learning Objectives

• Analyze and compare study designs (case-control, cohort, ecological) and calculate measures of disease frequency including incidence, prevalence, and age-standardized rates to interpret epidemiologic findings
• Evaluate sources of bias and confounding in research and outbreak investigations and apply study design and analytic strategies to minimize their impact
• Demonstrate step-by-step outbreak investigation and surveillance procedures, including data collection, informed consent practices, screening test evaluation, and basic surveillance data analysis
• Apply prevention and control measures—such as vaccination strategies, infection control practices, waterborne disease control, and travel-related recommendations—and effectively communicate findings and recommendations to stakeholders