MED 40709: Selec in Pop Hlth Res at School of Medicine

About this course

This is the first part of a two-semester course. The course is divided into two tracks: Integration of Research and Practice (?Track 1?) and Independent Research (?Track 2?). In both tracks, the core content will teach students to identify relevant research problems, define strong research questions, develop testable hypotheses, conduct sound literature reviews, evaluate the quality of published research articles, and make causal inferences from either published data or newly collected data. Numerous ethical issues in conducting population health research will be discussed. In the Integration of Research and Practice track, students will be given 5-6 population health problems and asked to address these problems using the published literature. The first problem will be a guided example, in which students are introduced to the methodology, and students will address the next problems with increasing independence. Final course project is a publishable manuscript that addresses a research question developed by the student. In the Independent Research track, students will conduct an independent, mentored risk factor epidemiology, community health, or health services research project. They will be asked to develop a research question and study proposal, and carry out this research with a mentor over the course of two years. The final course project is a publishable manuscript that reports on the study.Topics for research in both tracks will be selected by the student from a list of topics that align with faculty expertise (e.g., asthma epidemiology, smoking cessation interventions in the community, or health services for opioid dependence). A faculty mentor will be assigned to each student at the beginning of the course. Proposals for the final project must be approved by both the course director and the faculty mentor. The final manuscript will be reviewed by two faculty members. Grade assigned to all students at the end of this first part of the course is a Y. All students will be graded on a Pass/Fail basis at the end of part II (MED40809).