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SPECIAL TOPICS:   Histograms/Central tendency    Sensitivity/Specificity   Rates   Critical review 

               Evaluation Research   Definitions    Designs  Sample size  Sample methods  Confounding 

To the public, "medical research" is often seen as the somewhat sensational process whereby a microbiologist or an epidemiologist tracks down the source of a rare killer disease thereby stopping an epidemic, or suddenly finds a cure for a dreaded disease in a "Eureka!" breakthrough moment.  But the credibility and value of research, both within the medical and health professions, and with the media and public, depends upon painstaking attention to detail in the planning and design stages, flawless selection of subjects, careful implementation and elimination of all sources of bias, and extremely cautious yet accurate interpretation. A single study can take decades to complete, and can be applied as much to 'wellness' as to 'illness'.  The researcher may work in the qualitative domain or the quantitative domain, or both, and seek answers to questions at the cellular level, or at the scale of human populations. S/he may work retrospectively, or attempt to predict future risks and outcomes.

Objectives: At the end of the course, you should be able to:

(i) -  define many common terms used in research methods and epidemiology and describe the central concepts used in these fields;

(v) - critically review examples of published research and suggest how they may have been improved

(v) - suggest appropriate courses of action when dealing with important yet contentious aspects of research including informed consent, confounding variables, sample size calculation for power analysis and confidence limits, sample selection, peer review, and dissemination and publication of results

(vi) - become familiar with a basic set of statistical skills that you may once have encountered but that have since become unfamiliar or uncertain; each week we will run through one of these methods in a "refresher" format with lots of hands-on practice. (Previous groups have found this particularly useful.)         

Detailed topic list:

* Overview of research in med & health sciences: Outcome involves wellbeing, health, life, survival

*  Realms of research (quantitative/qualitative), applications, examples, advantages and disadvantages

* Basic research designs (retrospective/prospective, observational/experimental, case-control/cohort, longitudinal/cross-sectional),

             applications, examples, advantages and disadvantages

* Review of essential nomenclature, measures, rates, ratios, adjustments, continuous/categorical variables, etc.

* Organizing data using histograms.

* Sensitivity and specificity

* Selecting the probabilistic sample for survey health research .......

* Fundamental sampling principles for most med/health research

* Sample size determination for precision, including calculations, predictions, adjustments and reporting

* Sample size determination for power analysis, including use of nomogram for calculation

* Detecting the many types of bias and confounding!

* Communication with the public about health and medical research results 

The course structure:

It is strongly suggested that you bring a simple calculator along each week to help solve the statistical examples and the case studies, some of which which involve calculations. We will address several new methods in research each week, and include texts, internet links, graphics, video, and especially case studies. Attendance is strongly advised. 

■  I will try to answer an e-mail request within that same day. On busy weekends, the response may be delayed a little longer.