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Unit of study_
CEPI5100: Introduction to Clinical Epidemiology
2025 unit information
This online unit that can be undertaken either face-to-face, fully online, or in intensive block mode, introduces the concept of clinical epidemiology and provides students with core skills in clinical epidemiology at an introductory level. The unit is aimed at clinician learners and as such some clinical experience is required. Topics covered include asking and answering clinical questions; basic and accessible literature searching techniques; study designs used in clinical epidemiological research; confounding and effect modification; sources of bias; interpretation of results including odds ratios, relative risks, confidence intervals and p values; applicability of results to individual patients; critical appraisal of clinical epidemiological research literature used to answer questions of therapy (RCTs and systematic reviews), harm, prognosis, diagnosis and screening; applicability of results to individual patients; and evidence-based use of health resources.
Unit details and rules
Managing faculty or University school:
Medicine and Health
| Study level | Postgraduate |
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| Academic unit | Public Health |
| Credit points | 6 |
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Prerequisites:
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None |
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Corequisites:
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None |
| Prohibitions:
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None |
| Assumed knowledge:
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None |
At the completion of this unit, you should be able to:
- LO1. search for answers to appropriately formulated clinical questions using freely available internet-based resources
- LO2. describe the different study designs used in clinical epidemiology and their major strengths and weaknesses
- LO3. calculate and interpret measures of frequency and effect used in clinical epidemiology, and be able to interpret p-values and confidence intervals
- LO4. describe the impact of chance and bias on study results and how this can be reduced
- LO5. (critically) appraise clinical epidemiological studies for risk of bias that are used to answer questions of intervention, prognosis, harm, or aetiology, and diagnostic accuracy
- LO6. calculate and interpret measures of test performance
- LO7. apply results of clinical epidemiological studies to individual patients
- LO8. describe over-diagnosis and how it occurs
- LO9. describe over-treatment and how it occurs.
Unit availability
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Modes of attendance (MoA)
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