Teaching Basic Biostatistics to Public Health Graduate Students

• Activity Number: 495
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Wednesday, August 3, 2011 : 10:30 AM to 12:20 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Teaching of Statistics in the Health Sciences
• Author(s): John McGready*+
• Companies: The Johns Hopkins University

Abstract

For the past 11 years, the two term sequence "Statistical Reasoning in Public Health" has been taught concurrently on campus and online at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, with a total enrollment of 300. Initially the primary audience for this course was students pursuing a Master of Public Health (MPH) degree, a group primarily composed of MDs. However, over time the diversity of health related backgrounds in the MPH class has increased. Additionally the audience for the course has grown to encompass students seeking M.S. degrees in specialized areas, including mental health, policy, and social/ behavioral sciences. Originally, the examples used in the course were clinically motivated. However, temporal monitoring of course evaluations illustrated students' desire for data examples that span the breadth of public health. In the most recent overhaul of the course, much effort was put into diversifying the materials to include contemporary examples from the clinical, sociological, epidemiological, policy literature. This talk focuses on sources for diverse examples, and the challenge of addressing heterogeneity of interests in presenting a unified course.