Epidemiology and Public Health

Code:

MIMD010204

Acronym:

EPIDSP

Keywords
Classification	Keyword
OFICIAL	Medicine

Instance: 2024/2025 - 2S

Active?	Yes
Responsible unit:	Mestrado Integrado
Course/CS Responsible:	Integrated Master in Dental Medicine

Cycles of Study/Courses

Acronym	No. of Students	Study Plan	Curricular Years	Credits UCN	Credits ECTS	Contact hours	Total Time
MIMD	93	Official Plan from the academic year 2020/2021	1	-	3	36	81
		NÃO INSCREVER - Plano exclusivo para uso administrativo	1	-	3	36	81

Teaching language

Portuguese
Obs.: Português Obs.: Português - Suitable for English-speaking students

Objectives

Learning outcomes and competences

• Students should be able to describe and understand the main patterns of disease occurrence in the population and its determinants; describe and understand the demographic, social, economic, anthropological, behavioral, physical and biological conditions that influence or interact with the health status of populations;
• Know how to discuss the main public health problems and interventions;
• Understand the basic processes of the design of a research project;
• Understand the processes in the design of an interventional project;
• Understand and understand how to use project monitoring and evaluation methodologies;
• Know and acquire critical capacity for a better understanding of the main challenges of global public health.

Working method

Presencial

Program

General topics
Epidemiology and public health
health planning
Health promotion policies
Determinants of health and illness
Public health intervention
Public health successes
Types of studies
Concepts of association and causality
Epidemiology and prevention – Non-mandatory notifiable diseases
Notifiable diseases – surveillance and response


Theoretical-practical classes
Research and literature review;
Preparation of the PICO question
Critical analysis of investigation protocols
Critical reading of scientific literature
Case studies analysis
Development of a research project based on a PICO question

Week 1

Introduction to the curricular unit

Types of studies

Review of the objectives of the course and the lesson
Reading the class support material available on moodle
Looking for examples of public health problems and interventions in the media
Presentation by the teacher

Introduction to the course, objectives, methodology and assessment
Definition of a health problem (magnitude, social and economic importance, vulnerability to intervention by health services, etc)
Types of studies
Group work with class discussion:

Form groups of 5/6 students
Identify one public health problem per group (excluding topics already included in the syllabus)
Introduction to Public Health

Review statistical concepts:

Frequency measures
Measures of association
Measures of impact
Week 2

Types of studies, bias and confounding

Focus only on the types of study, give more examples, make them think about how they would design the study taking into account the problem they want to analyze, give examples...

Week 3

Critical analysis of research protocols

Review of the lesson objectives
Reading the class support material available on moodle
Review of the material given in previous curricular units
Presentation by the teacher

How a research protocol should be designed; brief review of types of study, sample size, error, confounding, risk, odds ratio
Class discussion of research protocol. Analyze the objectives, the type of study, the sample

Week 4

Sample size calculation



Reading the class support material available on moodle
Revision of the material given in previous curricular units
Support software for calculating sample size
Discussion and analysis of data for different types of studies
I think it's important for them to understand that they have to calculate the sample size. I thought it was clearer this year.

Week 5

Epidemiological surveillance

Review of lesson objectives
Reading the lesson support material, available on moodle
Presentation by the teacher:

Data sources, the importance of notification and quality records
Error and confounding
Surveillance of non-communicable diseases (national cancer registry, national registry of congenital diseases, concept of health observatory - definition, objectives, examples - global burden of disease) and communicable diseases
Knowing the information circuit from notification to the ECDC
Class discussion of scientific literature on data sources and potential errors and confounding factors and how they can affect the conclusions of the work

Week 6

Field epidemiology

Review of class objectives
Reading of class support material, available on moodle
Teacher presentation

Approach to outbreaks
Concepts (field epidemiology, differences and similarities with “classical” epidemiology, attack rate...)
Class discussion of different cases of outbreaks, with different forms of transmission and contexts.


Week 7

Case studies

Inequalities in health

Review of the lesson objectives
Reading the lesson support material available on moodle
Looking for examples of health inequalities
Teacher presentation

Health inequalities as a whole, their concept and implications
Discussion of examples (gender inequality, inequalities of financial origin, inequalities in people with disabilities, inequalities based on age, inequalities based on ethnicity, geographical inequalities).
Class discussion of news, studies or publications on the subject.

Week 8

Health promotion policies.

Subject: Food

Review of lesson objectives
Reading the lesson support material, available on moodle
Presentation by the teacher:

Preventive measures, discuss the concept of primordial, primary, secondary, tertiary and quaternary prevention
Health promotion policies related to food, tobacco and alcohol
Class discussion of scientific literature on the evaluation of different interventions

Week 9

Health promotion policies

Subject:

Substance use and dependence

Review of lesson objectives
Reading of class support material, available on moodle
Presentation by the teacher:

Health promotion policies related to addictive behaviors.
Class discussion of scientific literature on the evaluation of different interventions

Week 10

Exhibition and discussion of the project

Preparation of the exhibition on the project under development.
In class there will be a theoretical presentation and discussion with the class.
At the end of the lesson, the proposal should be handed in. It should include an introduction, objective, material and methods.
Presentation by each group on the selected topic

Introduction
Objective
Material and methods

Week 11

Case studies

Screenings

Review of the lesson objectives
Reading the class support material available on moodle
Teacher's presentation

Screening (organized national oncological and non-oncological screening; non-organized screening (opportunistic screening, DGS Standard for the Diagnosis and Laboratory Screening of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Infection, Screening of disease contacts, etc).
Discuss what an organized screening program entails
When to do it/how to do it
Which tests to use - review concepts of sensitivity, specificity, PPV and NPV
Class discussion of screening cases in different contexts.

Week 12

Case studies

Occupational health

Review of the lesson objectives
Reading the class support material available on moodle
Teacher presentation

Occupational health as a public health priority
Class discussion of news, studies or publications on the subject.

Review, assuming they won't be preparing the lesson at home

Week 13

Case studies

Global Health

Review of the lesson objectives
Reading the lesson support material available on moodle
Teacher presentation

Week 14

Self-assessment

Group work

 

Mandatory literature

Celentano D, Sklo M; Gordis Epidemiology, Elsevier (6th edition), 2019
James F. McKenzie (Editor).; An Introduction to Community & Public Health, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, (9th edition), 2018
Brownson RC, Baker EA, Leet TL, Gillespie KN; Evidence-Based Public Health, Oxford University Press, 2018

Teaching methods and learning activities

Preparation for practical classes

Role of teachers
• Ensure that groups are organized and that responsibilities rotate through different classes
• Prepare the guide on the objective/depth of each topic/session
• Make a theoretical contextualization of the class, according to what is established in the program
• Before class, ensure that everyone has read the assignments and understood the lesson objectives
• Encourage discussion in each group - brainstorming or with nominal identification techniques in order to ensure the participation of all elements of the groups and stimulate creative thinking
• Ensure that groups focus on the objectives of the lesson and recall whenever necessary the different steps of the lesson in order to ensure that there is no dispersion
• They act as a resource whenever assistance is needed to clarify an issue, but are careful to ensure that the work is carried out by the group
• End the class with a brief summary of the most relevant concepts

Role of students
• Review course and class objectives (always available one week in advance)
• See the class support material, available on moodle
• Prepare the class in advance – the case studies, articles, protocols used in the class will be distributed in advance, as well as the guide for the same.
• During the class they actively participate


Composition of groups
Each group has between 5 and 6 students

Evaluation Type

Distributed evaluation with final exam

Assessment Components

Designation	Weight (%)
Exame	70,00
Trabalho laboratorial	30,00
Total:	100,00

Amount of time allocated to each course unit

Designation	Time (hours)
Estudo autónomo	43,00
Frequência das aulas	28,00
Apresentação/discussão de um trabalho científico	5,00
Trabalho escrito	5,00
Total:	81,00

Eligibility for exams

Assistance to at least 75% of the theoretical-practical sessions

Minimum evaluation of 7 values in each of the components, with a total equal to or greater than 9.5.

Calculation formula of final grade

Special assessment (TE, DA, ...)

Classification improvement

Observations

Bibliographical Observations


The bibliography will also include scientific articles relevant to the study topics.

Short videos (15 minutes) as well as other audiovisual materials (for example, WHO videos) are available on Moodle with support material for the subject and practical classes