Applied Epidemiology for Public Health Nurses


A CD ROM Self-Study Course - Last updated: 3/9/2006

This course covers the basic principles and terminology of epidemiology and focuses on the activities in which public health nurses contribute to public health surveillance and disease outbreak investigation. This course is designed to provide basic concepts of epidemiology and surveillance and to sharpen the skills of public health nurses in outbreak investigations.

This course is not currently available for download. Request a CD-ROM version of this course.

Purpose

This course covers the basic principles and terminology of epidemiology and focuses on the activities in which public health nurses contribute to public health surveillance and disease outbreak investigation. The course is designed to provide basic concepts of epidemiology and surveillance and to sharpen the skills of public health nurses in outbreak investigations.

Intended Audience

  • Public health nurses employed by public sector public health departments
  • Nurses employed in other public health agencies.

Objectives

At the end of this course you should be able to:

  1. Discuss the basic principles of epidemiology
  2. Describe the key features and applications of descriptive and analytic epidemiology
  3. Describe the use of epidemiologic data to generate tables, graphs and plots
  4. Describe the processes, uses and evaluation of public health surveillance
  5. Describe the steps that take place in outbreak investigations
  6. Identify the public health nurse’s role in public health surveillance and in an outbreak investigation.

Overview of Course

Module 1: Introduction to Epidemiology

Module 2: Frequency Measures Used in Epidemiology

Module 3: Organizing Epidemiologic Data

Module 4: Public Health Surveillance

Module 5: Outbreak Investigation

Format

The course materials consist of five modules with short quizzes to test your knowledge. At the end of the module is a self-assessment consisting of multiple choice questions.. The quizzes and self-assessment are not graded. Refer back to the text if you are uncertain of the correct response. If you select an incorrect response, you will be prompted to try again. A complete list of references/resources can be found at the end of each module.

You can work at your own pace. Allow one to two hours to complete each of the modules. To get the most out of the course, establish a regular time and method of study. Research has shown that these factors greatly influence learning ability.

Acknowledgments

This course offering is based on the CDC self-study course, 3030-G, Principles of Epidemiology: An Introduction to Applied Epidemiology and Biostatistics (December 1992). The course materials were edited by the Connecticut Partnership for Public Health Workforce Development at the Yale University School of Public Health and adapted by the Yale Center for Public Health Preparedness.

This project was funded by the Connecticut Department of Public Health, the Centers fo Disease Control and Prevention Public Health Preparedness and Response for Bioterrorism Cooperative Agreement, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Center Public Health Preparedness Cooperative Agreement and the New England Alliance for Public Health Workforce Development Health Resources and Services Administration Grant No. D20HP00003.

 
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