M. Bayona et al., SHORT-COURSE TRAINING IN EPIDEMIOLOGY AND BIOSTATISTICS FOR GRADUATE AND UNDERGRADUATE PUBLIC-HEALTH PROFESSIONALS, Public health reports, 109(3), 1994, pp. 434-438
The University of South Florida has developed short courses of 2 to 3
days in epidemiology and biostatistics geared to public health workers
. A key focus is providing skills which will assist local and State pu
blic health units to assess their status and measure progress with res
pect to achieving their explicitly stated health objectives for the ye
ar 2000. The courses were developed after the identification of the tr
aining needs in health departments and other public health settings. T
he training objectives were (a) to enhance the biostatistics skills of
professionals involved in the analysis of health data; (b) to reinfor
ce basic knowledge of epidemiologic methods and its practical applicat
ions in public health settings, including measures of disease frequenc
y and association, epidemic outbreak investigations, and the identific
ation and use of surveillance data; and (c) to demonstrate the applica
tion of the risk factor approach to select the interventions needed to
reach health objectives for year 2000 and how to evaluate such interv
entions. A total of 43 students have taken this course series. Profess
ional staff in health departments cannot always enroll in formal train
ing in epidemiology and biostatistics because of time limitations or a
lack of a bachelor's degree. However, the need exists. An alternative
to such training could be the short course program described in this
paper.