Lectures

supplemented by recordings (some of which are password-protected and readings on password-protected page accessible from menu at top right of course blog
updates for 2019 to be added as the semester develops
URL for discussion & workshop: http://bit.ly/753zoom
URL for zoom for mini-lecture: same as above
URL for 1-on-1 with Peter: http://bit.ly/pjtzoom

1. Course as a learning community & Reading strategies
see Notes
a. Introductions. See password-protected page.
b. Reading strategies--See password-protected page
c. Reading strategies--Discussion of Lustig video--See password-protected page

2. Phenomena: Exploring the "natural history" of disease
see Notes
mini-lecture = AllchinBeriBeriIntro then class activity based on case accessible on password-protected page

• At each point where the instructions say THINK, stop, think about your answers, type them into a file, then listen to what everyone else said for that THINK [on recording yet to be uploaded], add more to the your file if you want, then return to the instructions to read the next section, and so on. At the end, post your answers to the blog.

See discussion of readings & topic
See discussion of course project(s)

3. Scope & challenges of epidemiology
see Notes
Mini-lecture" rel="nofollow">mini-lecture 2019 which refers to http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/RosePlot.xls

• Note: cases (yellow) occur because a person drawn from the distribution (blue) of risk factors has a chance (a vulnerability--red curve) to get the disease. The cut-off line does not affect that; it only affects whether the person is treated as a high-risk or lo-risk individual and thus how cases (and not-cases) are divided among the high- and low-risk categories.

See discussion of readings & topic
See discussion of course project(s)

4. Categories
see Notes
http://youtu.be/9S3ml5Q0MSU (video 2015) or TBA mini-lecture which refers to http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/CategoriesNotes.pdf
See discussion of readings & topic
See discussion of course project(s)

5. Associations, Predictions, Causes, and Interventions
see Notes
Mini-lectures: On password-protected site refers to http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/753-11Class5Lecture.pdf. This has three parts:
1. Activity based on data that link parents and offspring. Main goal: To get us into consideration of the ideas for session 5 by showing how associations (patterns) relate to predictions, even when the causes are not clear from the data, and how interventions should be based on causes.

• This activity is discussed further starting on page 3 of Taylor, P.J. (2008) "Why was Galton so concerned about 'regression to the mean'? -A contribution to interpreting and changing science and society" DataCritica, 2(2): 3-22, bit.ly/DataCritica2_1_1 (or http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/taylorongalton.pdf).
• Supplementary material on the meaning of scatter plots: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/TablesPlots753.pdf
  • I include histograms as well as scatter plots so you can see the different pictures they provide.
  • There is no audio. My thinking is that the illustration may be enough, but, if it isn't, then a 2-way exchange, not a 1-way lecture, is needed to understand and respond to how the students see the different concepts and plots.

2. To help show the relation between correlation and linear regression for continuous variables (in a way that is not commonly understood and/or discussed by statisticians). This might help counter the language that makes us feel that regressions, by themselves, provide insight about how changes in the independent variables cause changes in the dependent variable.

• Supplementary material--"Statistics: A conceptual overview" http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/statslecture.pdf
  • This really needs be taken slowly in a lecture presentation with Q&A, but may be intriguing for some who are comfortable with statistics.

3. To help you get the feel for relative risk, odds ratios, and their relationship, read Gordis on Estimating Risk: Is there an association (chap. 11 in the 4th edition), then play with http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/2x2Associations.xls

Here is a quick youtube on this spreadsheet: https://youtu.be/5T5K8QChCJM

6. Conditioning and Confounders
see Notes
On confounders and conditioning: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/dangerincom.PDF

• See password-protected page for powerpoints on instrumental variables & Mendelian randomization.

On "reverse causation": http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/reversecausation.PDF

• Recording of mini-lecture guided by files above on password-protected site

7. Variations
see Notes
Watch the video of John Lynch covering issues of effective interventions, absolute versus relative risk, and how health disparities are conceived.

8. Heterogeneity
see Notes
Video: https://youtu.be/Hi6W9QsoFmQ The heterogeneity that is the focus of this session takes the form of a population actually being a mixture of two populations with respect to the etiology or relevant causes. There are, however, a heterogeneity of heterogeneities, as is conveyed in this discussion paper: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/HeterogeneityIowaPaper.pdf or panels from a poster to a 2014 conference on complexity in the health sciences. The 2017 audio discusses the illustrations in the poster.

9. Multi-leveled context
see Notes
Mini-lecture: TBA, to be listened to in conjunction with schematic Plots on MultiLevel Analysis: http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/MultiLevelPlots.PDF

10. Life course epidemiology
see Notes
TBA (TBA begins by reviewing the two life course diagrams of Kuh & Ben-Shlomo on http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/LifeCourseDiagrams.pdf. It then continues using slides from a talk about competing views of fetal origins of chronic diseases in later life, http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/reconcile.pdf, and concludes by reviewing the contrasting approach of George Brown through a schematic of his early results.

11. Multivariable "structural" models of development
see Notes
Lecture:
TBA. To be listened to in conjunction with diagrams from Kendler and from Ou on password-protected page, as well as
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/PathAnalysis.pdf

12.Heritability, heterogeneity, and group differences
see Notes
http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/heritability.pdf
Lecture with slides from 2013, TBA

13.Genetic diagnosis, treatment, monitoring, and surveillance
see Notes
To be listened to in conjunction with these slides, which comes from the following publications:
Genome-Wide Association studies:

• Guidelines for, Table 2 of Khoury, et al. (2007). "On the synthesis and interpretation of consistent but weak gene-disease associations..." International Journal of Epidemiology 36: 439-445.
• Limited yield from... Couzin-Frankel, J.: 2010, Major Heart Disease Genes Prove Elusive. Science 328(5983),1220-1221 -- See password-protected page for full text of both articles.

Infrastructure:
Frank on non-level playing field, Paul on lifecourse of PKU, (Alternative: 2013 Lecture with slides)

14.Popular and lay epidemiology
see Notes
See http://www.faculty.umb.edu/peter_taylor/epi/files/PagesfromASICS.pdf in conjunction with