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Research Methods in Public Health

  • Modules

  • 9 ECTS Credits

  • English

General information

COURSES AND PROGRAMMES CAN BE SUBJECT TO CHANGE

This core course component is an introduction to research methods in Public Health, from different research traditions and disciplines, including epidemiology & statistics, social sciences, and health policy & systems research. It prepares participants to apply these methods in specific public health research and decision-making scenarios such as critical appraisal of research findings, reviewing the literature, routine data analysis, monitoring and evaluation, guideline development, research priority setting, participation in a research project, and research proposal development.

 

Attainment of the learning objectives of this introductory course component is a pre-requisite to follow advanced course components on research methods.

Learning objectives

At the end of the course component, students should be able to:

  • Appreciate the importance of sound information and evidence for decision-making
  • Understand the role and scope of research in public health
  • Understand the perspectives of different research disciplines and domains in public health: epidemiology, social sciences, and health policy and systems research
  • Explain the difference between qualitative and quantitative approaches in research
  • Recognise research discipline and study design in a scientific article and interpret the findings
  • Critically appraise the quality of the evidence in a scientific article
  • Identify and appraise issues related to research ethics in a scientific article
  • Apply basic concepts and methods of epidemiology and statistics
  • Analyse routine data and quantitative research data (from data analysis plan to interpretation)
  • Apply basic concepts and methods of qualitative research
  • Apply basic concepts and methods of health policy and systems research
  • Applying these concepts and methods in specific public health research and decision-making scenarios such as 
  • critical appraisal of research findings and literature reviews
  • monitoring and evaluation and routine data analysis
  • development & improvement of policies and guidelines
  • research priority setting
  • participation as a co-investigator in research projects
  • development of a research proposal

Course Leader(s)

  • Tine Verdonck

Course Coördinator(s)

  • Kirsten Accoe

Course Administrator(s)

  • Nadine Nuyts