Course Number: PUBH 805.

3 Title: Biostatistics for Public Health Credit Weight: 3 credit hours Position in typical PUBH 805.3 is a core required course for the Master of Public Health course sequence: degree. It must be completed within the first 24 credit hours of course
work. Typically this is in the first year of study. Term offered: Winter 2012-13

Course Coordinator: Dr. Michael Szafron Contact Information: Office: HLTH 2699 Office Hours: Faculty Instructor: Contact Information: Office Hours:
Telephone: (306) 966 - 5468 E-mail: [email protected] Monday/Wednesday/Friday: 2:30 - 4:30 p.m. or by appointment Dr. Cindy Feng Office: HLTH 2716 Telephone: (306) 966 - 1948 E-mail: [email protected] Monday: 2:30 - 6:30 p.m./Wednesday: 9:00 a.m. - 11:00 a.m. or by appointment Bruce McDonald and Ellen Rafferty

Teaching Assistants: Class Hours & 13 week course Location Starting January 7 and ending April 9 , 2013

Section 02: Lectures in HLTH A226: Monday and Wednesday: 4:30 p.m. - 5:50 p.m. Tutorials in HLTH A203: Monday and Wednesday: 6:00 p.m. - 7:20 p.m. Section 03: Lectures in AGRI 2D77: Monday: 9:30 a.m. - 10:50 a.m. Lectures in AGRI 1E69: Wednesday: 2:30 p.m. - 3:50 p.m. Tutorials in HLTH A203: Monday: 11:00 a.m. - 12:20 p.m. Wednesday: 4:30 p.m. - 5:50 p.m.

Prerequisites/ Students must have achieved a final grade of 70% or better in the Corequisites: Biostatistics portion of PUBH 804.3 or have obtained the permission of the
instructor to enroll in this course.

To communicate with the course coordinator outside of the classroom, please email him at this address. If a response is warranted, the coordinator will respond to your email within two business days (starting once he receives your message). 2 To communicate with the instructor outside of the classroom, please email her at this address. If a response is warranted, the instructor will respond to your email within two business days (starting once she receives your message).

Calendar Description:
This course is designed for students who wish to understand basic biostatistical methods and principles as they apply to public health data. The methods include descriptive statistics, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing, analysis of variance, non-parametric methods, multiple regression and logistic regression. The emphasis of the course is on applications of these methods to public health data, on correct interpretations of the resulting analyses as to be presented to both public health professionals and general lay audiences, and on critical appraisals of these methods as used in the public health literature. The course also introduces the computer software program SPSS as it applies to the statistical topics discussed in the course.

Course Goal(s) and/or Objective(s):

By the end of the course, each student should be able to: Describe the roles that biostatistics serves in public health, including epidemiological and clinical research; Identify properties of public health data sets including the level of measurement for each variable and apply descriptive statistics to summarize the data according to its measurement type; Identify and implement appropriate statistical techniques (including one and two-sample hypotheses tests, ANOVA, simple and multiple regression, logistic regression, and several nonparametric methods) for analyzing public health data; and Use a software package (such as SPSS) to generate the output relevant to the analysis required for a particular public health study and interpret this output.

Course Format:
This course is presented mainly in the classroom and tutorial sessions. In addition to the material available from the course website, students can find a wealth of information and examples in the required textbooks. The times/dates/locations of any additional help sessions will be announced in class and posted on Blackboard.

Required Materials:
1) Biostatistics: A Foundation for Analysis in the Health Sciences Author: Daniel, W. (Wiley, 2009, 9th Edition) Using SPSS for Windows and Macintosh: Analyzing and Understanding Data Authors: Green, B. G. and Salkind, N. J. (Prentice Hall, 5th Edition) The textbooks can be obtained in the following ways: 3) by purchasing it directly from the University of Saskatchewan bookstore; by following the instructions at the University of Saskatchewan bookstore website http://www.usask.ca/consumer_services/bookstore/textbooks/; through your PAWS Academics tab; or through Amazons website at http://www.amazon.ca. The computer software package: SPSS. The latest version can be purchased online through the website: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/products/statistics/gradpack/.

2)

Course Assessments/Evaluations:
1. Assignments (10%) There will be five assignments counted for credit in the course. Students will be given approximately two weeks to complete each assignment. Each assignment is to be completed within the groups assigned by the instructor. Each group will submit one copy of its completed solution to be graded. The instructor will assign a grade to each assignment and at the end of term, compute an assignment grade for each group by averaging the groups assignment scores. At the end of the term, each group member will evaluate the participation of the others in his/her group. An individual students assignment grade will then be determined by weighting the groups score by the participation score. The details of the participation evaluation will be provided in class. Late assignments will not be accepted and will receive a grade of zero. In the case that an assignment was late due to a valid reason (as determined by the instructor), the late assignment will be accepted.

2. Midterm Exams (40%) Each midterm exam will be a three hour exam. o The first exam will be worth 15% and held from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, February 13, 2013. All sections of PUBH 805.3 will write this exam on this day at this time. The exam will be written in HLTH A226. The second midterm exam will be worth 25% and held from 4:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday, March 6, 2013. All sections of PUBH 805.3 will write this exam on this day at this time. The exam will be written in HLTH A226.

Unless otherwise notified, both midterm exams will be written in HLTH A226. Both midterm exams may be comprised of anyone-and/or-all of the following formats: true/false, multiple-choice, fill in the blank, and short answer. Each exam may be written ONLY one time. There will be no make-up exams offered. A student who misses an exam without a valid reason (as determined by the instructor) will receive 0% on the missed exam. A student, who misses a midterm exam due to a valid reason (as determined by the instructor), will have the weight of the missed exam transferred to the weight of the final exam. While serious consideration has been given to the severe time and professional constrains faced by many graduate students, each midterm exam must be written as scheduled above; NO exceptions will be made. All exams are considered to be independent work, completed only by each individual student enrolled in the course. Specific instructions regarding each of the midterm exams will be given in the classroom at the time of the exam.

3. Final Exam (50%) 1. The final exam will be a three hour examination. 2. 3. The final exam may be comprised of anyone-and/or-all of the following formats: true/false, multiple-choice, fill in the blank, and short answer. The final exam will minimally constitute 50% of a students final grade.

4.

The final exam may be taken ONLY one time. There will be no make-up final exams. In the event that a student is unable to write the final exam when scheduled, the student must follow the appropriate Deferred Examination policies. While serious consideration has been given to the severe time and professional constrains faced by many graduate students, the University schedules the day, time, and location of the final exam. Consequently NO alternate arrangements for this exam can be made. The final exam is considered to be independent work, completed only by each individual student enrolled in the course. Specific instructions regarding the final exam will be given in the classroom at the time of the exam.

5.

6. 7.

Expectations:
You will be expected to: o attend all classes. o o o o complete all exams, participate fully in all class discussions, and positively contribute to the overall classroom atmosphere. bring a printed copy of the lecture outlines (available on Blackboard) to each class to assist you with taking your own lecture notes. obtain any missed notes from another student in the class. conduct yourself in a professional manner with the integrity of a public health practitioner. Plagiarism, cheating, and any other form of Academic Dishonesty will not be tolerated. Please refer to the website http://www.usask.ca/calendar/policies/studentrights/ to review the University of Saskatchewans policy with respect to Academic Dishonesty. contribute equally, and participate fully, within your assigned group. submit all materials for evaluation on their respectively assigned due dates

o o

Tentative Course Topics:

Review o Quantitative Descriptive Statistics o One and two sample confidence intervals o One and two sample hypothesis testing Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) o Required Assumptions o One-way ANOVA o Two-way ANOVA, including randomized complete block design and two-factor factorial experiments o Repeated Measures ANOVA o Multiple comparisons using multiple range tests and prior and posterior comparisons Non-parametric Analysis o Required Assumptions o The Sign Test o The Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test o The Mann-Whitney U Test o Fishers Exact Test o Kruskal-Wallis One-Way ANOVA o Friedmans Two-Way ANOVA o Spearmans Rank Correlation Coefficient Multiple Regression o Required assumptions for a multiple regression model and common public health applications o Pearsons Correlation Coefficient (Multiple R Coefficient) o Fitting the model, testing for the significance of the coefficients, and testing the significance of the fitted model o Interpreting the coefficients in the fitted model o Interaction and confounding variables o Regression diagnostics Logistic Regression o Required assumptions for a logistic regression model and common public health applications o Fitting the model, testing for the significance of the coefficients, and testing the significance of the fitted model o Interpreting the coefficients in the fitted model o Interaction and confounding variables o Odds-ratio estimation

Tentative Course Schedule:

Lecture 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 Topic Course Introduction Review Review Review Review ANOVA: An F-test for Independent Samples Based on a Single Factor ANOVA: Two Fixed Effects, With No Interaction ANOVA: Two Fixed Effects, With Interaction ANOVA: One Fixed Effect and One Random Effect ANOVA: Repeated Measures ANOVA: Repeated Measures Midterm Non-Parametric Statistics: The Sign Test and the Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Signed Rank Test Non-Parametric Statistics: The Mann-Whitney U Test and Fishers Exact Test Non-Parametric Statistics: Kruskal-Wallis One-Way ANOVA and Friedmans ANOVA Midterm Multiple Regression Multiple Regression Multiple Regression Multiple Regression Logistic Regression Logistic Regression Logistic Regression Logistic Regression Logistic Regression Logistic Regression

Additional Information:
Access to your instructors complete lecture notes will be made available during the tutorials and help sessions. Students cannot remove these notes from the tutorial and help session classrooms. At no time will these notes be made electronically available to students and under no circumstances will students be allowed to digitally reproduce these notes. Any violation of these conditions will be considered an act of academic misconduct and will be dealt with according to university policy. All assignments are to be completed within the groups assigned by the instructor. The instructor will create the groups on the first day of class. At no point in time will extra credit work be assigned. There is no point distribution or award for attendance. However, please be advised that attendance is strongly positively correlated to an individuals final grade in this course. Please note that for MPH students in the class, a grade of 70% or better is required to receive credit for this course. Final grades (and comments, if necessary) will be assigned consistent with the above Course Evaluation scheme and the policies and procedures set by the University of Saskatchewan Council (http://www.usask.ca/calendar/exams&grades/). An SPSS training video is available at: www.usask.ca/it4u/resources.html. SPSS video tutorials can be found on the website: http://www-01.ibm.com/software/analytics/spss/academic/students/tutorials.html

Academic Integrity:
Students are expected to follow the Guidelines for Academic Conduct at the University of Saskatchewan and to be aware of their rights and responsibilities. Consult the following for expectations regarding behavior, assignments and other aspects of university life: http://www.usask.ca/university_secretary/honesty/index.php Any perceived engagement in academic misconduct such as plagiarism, cheating, and any other form of Academic Dishonesty will not be tolerated. Please refer to the above website.

Students with Disabilities:

If you have, or believe you have, a disability and would benefit from classroom accommodation(s), please contact the Disability Services for Students (DSS) at http://www.usask.ca/sesd/colleges/dss/. Only students with disabilities who are registered with the DSS office are eligible to use their programs and services. In order to register with DSS, a student must provide valid and current medical documentation or a psycho-educational assessment prepared by a registered psychologist. Students are only allowed to use those supports and accommodations that are specifically outlined in the documentation provided. Registration appointments can be booked by contacting DSS. Students are encouraged to register as early in the term as possible, so that appropriate supports can be put in place and deadlines can be met. Once a student is registered, s/he only has to reregister if the disability has changed significantly, affecting the types of accommodations required. All medical information is treated confidentially.