FHE4100 – Clinical Epidemiology and Scientific Evidence in Health and Health Care

Knowledge

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Explain the three pillars of evidence-based medicine and the basic terminology and principles of clinical epidemiology
• Explain designs, with strengths, weaknesses, and risks of bias, for studies of 1) clinical test properties, 2) screening programs, 3) effectiveness of interventions, and 4) systematic reviews and meta-analyses
• Be familiar with established reporting requirements and tools for the critical appraisal, including risk of bias, for study designs in clinical epidemiology
• Explain critical appraisal of studies in clinical epidemiology, and conversely, the design and conduct of studies that provide the highest quality evidence for decision making
• Explain priority setting in evidence-to-decision processes and guideline development

Skills

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Apply basic terminology and principles of clinical epidemiology and evidence-based medicine
• Critically appraise published studies of test properties, screening programs, randomized controlled trials, and systematic reviews and meta-analyses
• Design basic but high-quality studies of test properties, screening programs, randomized controlled trials, and systematic reviews and meta-analyses
• Apply evidence-to-decision processes
• Effectively instruct and validate the output of large language model based artificial intelligence (GPT UiO) in design and critical appraisal of studies in clinical epidemiology

General competence

Upon completion of this course, you will be able to:

• Understand and reflect on the role of evidence from clinical epidemiology in evidence-based medicine
• Critically appraise the evidence presented in published studies in clinical epidemiology
• Reflect on the evidence behind health care and public health practices, and the evidence-to-decision processes involved

This course is available for students at the following master's programmes:

• Folkehelsevitenskap og epidemiologi (master)
• Helseadministrasjon (master – experience based)
• International Community Health (master)

Students at Folkehelsevitenskap og epidemiologi (master) and Helseadministrasjon (master – experience based) have priority.

Students enrolled in other Master's programmes at the Institute of Health and Society can, on application, be admitted to the course if this is cleared by their own study programme.

Students who are admitted to study programmes at UiO must each semester register which courses and exams they wish to sign up for in Studentweb.

If you are not already enrolled as a student at UiO, please see our information about admission requirements and procedures.

• INTHE4020 – Introduction to Quantitative Methods (discontinued); or equivalent
• INTHE4021 – Introduction to Epidemiology (discontinued); or equivalent

• The course will be given during 2. semester with intermittent teaching, self-study and peer-based learning.
• Several assignments will be given for self- and peer study in the days with no teaching.

Written group assignment.

Examination and grading at The Faculty of Medicine.