School of Health Management and Policy

Graduate Certificate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Program Description

The certificate program will serve as a means of certifying those students who wish to pursue a formal training in epidemiology and biostatistics. At present there is no option available in the W.P.CareySchool of Business or in the ArizonaStateUniversity for certification in the area of epidemiology and biostatistics.

Our goal is to provide a program in epidemiology and biostatistics that gives students a competitive advantage in research applications in the health industry. The Certificate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics will provide students the knowledge and tools required to serve as research analysts in the health field.

The certificate program is designed to be a stand-alone graduate certificate offered by SHMP. It will consist of courses already designed specifically for this audience and taught by ASU faculty members of SHMP and other related areas.

Required Courses

A minimum of 15 credit hours consisting of five (three credit) courses will be required to complete the Graduate Certificate in Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Pending the completion of any prerequisite courses, the certificate can be completed in one year.  The required courses are taken from existing courses offered in the School of Health Management and Policy. The delivery mode for instruction will be mixed with the traditional in-class learning environment with come on-line instructions for certain epidemiology classes.  Although the certificate program is designed with course sequencing that allows completion in one year, it is expected that working professionals meeting the responsibilities of their current employment may not necessarily finish within a year. The certificate program is not a cohort program, and it is anticipated that some individuals may not be able to take all five required courses within one year. “Normal progress” for this certificate program will be a minimum of two courses per year, and an expectation of meeting all requirements within three years. Students will require a “B” average to complete the certificate.

A. HSM 561 Biostatistics (3) or QBA 525 or STP 532

Aspects of descriptive statistics and statistical inference statistics with SAS most relevant to health issues, including data, rates, regression models, and confidence intervals. Odds ration, binary data analysis, logistic and probit models, generalized linear models.

B. HSM 505 Epidemiology (3)

History of epidemiology; agent/vector/host/environment and person/place/time as basic constructs of epidemiology; basic measures of epidemiology; epidemiology study designs; potential impact of chance, bias, confounding, and effect modification on epidemiologic studies; implications and limitations of statistical association.

C. HSM 572 Advanced Biostatistics (3)

Appropriate analytical methods to apply to given sets of epidemiological data; analytical techniques for omitted variables; survival analysis; risk adjustments; calculating the basic metrics of screening programs; manipulating large databases; reviewing epidemiologic data and studies; sample size software and simulation software.

D. HSM 598 Managing Clinical Trials: Design, Conduct and Ethics (3)

      (already being offered-waiting for a regular course number)

Strengths and weaknesses of experimental and observational study designs; common flaws in design of clinical trials; selecting the appropriate study design for a research question for a research question; implications of masking the intervention and outcome assessments; implications of randomization; methods and strategies for participate screening and recruitment and promoting participant adherence and retention; methods for data collection and quality control; monitoring to assure participant safety and high quality data; ethical issues related to the conduct of clinical trials ; regulatory requirements.

Electives

E. HSM598 Special Topics in Management Epidemiology

Program evaluation and planning; needs assessments; cost-benefits/cost-effectiveness analysis; technology assessment; quality management; surveillance methods; epidemiology and health policy

F. QBA 527 Categorical Data Analysis

Discrete data analysis in business research; Multidimensional contingency tables and other discrete models

G. HSM 598 Managerial Epidemiology

Applying epidemiology to managerial functions; role and responsibilities of a project manager; impact of financial issues on proposed epidemiology studies; behavioral change theory; concepts of risk perception and motivation; marketing tools for the public sector and health promotion; health ethics and public health ethics; HIPPA requirements for confidentiality of health data

H. STP 535 Applied Sampling Methodology

Simple random, stratified, cluster sampling; variance estimation in complex surveys; nonparametric super population  approaches; non-response models; computational methods.