← All Courses HSCI 341

Fundamental Epidemiological Concepts and Approaches

Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University

Foundations, surveillance & sampling

Lessons 01–02

Introduction & Causal ConceptsFoundations of epidemiological thinking, causal inference, and the counterfactual framework.

Surveillance and SamplingRoutine surveillance systems, outbreak detection and field-epidemiology response, then the sampling strategies, sources of error, and sample-size calculations that let a sample stand in for a population.

Measurement

Lesson 03

Questionnaire DesignPrinciples of measurement, question construction, and minimizing information bias in surveys.

Measures & tests

Lessons 04–06

Measures of Disease FrequencyPrevalence, incidence, and mortality rates as tools for quantifying disease occurrence in populations.

Screening & Diagnostic TestsSensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and evaluating the accuracy of screening programs.

Measures of AssociationRisk ratios, odds ratios, and rate ratios for quantifying exposure–outcome relationships.

Study designs

Lesson 07

Study DesignsObservational designs (cross-sectional, cohort, case-control, ecological), the hybrid designs that combine them, and randomised controlled trials: allocation, blinding, analysis, and reporting.

Validity & causal inference

Lessons 08–09

Validity in Observational StudiesInternal and external validity, selection bias, information bias, and confounding as the three dominant threats to validity in observational research, with strategies to anticipate and mitigate each.

Confounding & Causal InferencePre-analysis design choices, detection through stratification and DAGs, multivariable adjustment, and the full causal-inference framework that closes the bias triad.