The course “Applied Biostatistics and Epidemiology” requires students to apply what they have learned to evidence-based practice. The course covers the essential concepts and skills required for reading, communicating, interpreting, and applying statistical methods in healthcare. Various methods are reviewed with emphasis on statistical application for the critical assessment of data. The use of statistics and their associated values of meaning and significance for appropriate and informed decision-making are major underpinnings for the course. Principles of epidemiology and concepts of disease causation are addressed while considering ethical and genomic issues in the application of statistical and epidemiological studies.
The current assignment is focused on students reading an article and then writing a summary of the article. A list of questions are provided below. The article for this assignment is “On the Convergence of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, and Data science” by Goldstein, LeVasseur, and McClure (2020). The researchers surmise that these distinct disciplines have much to learn from and share with each other, for the modern-day researcher who works with the plethora of electronic health data to be competent, knowledgeable, and skilled.
Students should submit their Word file article review assignment it in Blackboard for faculty evaluation. Students are encouraged to use their course textbook, the American Psychological Association Manual of Style, 7th Edition (2020), and other resources for reference.
Please answer the following questions for the assigned article review
- Describe the primary focus and competencies of each research discipline within the health care substantive areas of epidemiology, biostatistics, and data science. (4 points)
- Discuss the benefits of collaboration that warrant collaboration and tighter integration within health care. (4 points)
- Epidemiologists, biostatisticians, and data scientists have different academic preparation and distinct focus of their specialty, however, these disciplines share much in common with overlapping concepts. Identify these conceptual areas of commonality for potential synergy. (4 points)
- Describe the motivational example of the researchers’ electronicmedical record (EMR) based research question (hypothesis). What data did the researchers suggest may be related to their hypothesis? (4 points)
- Epidemiologists evaluate causal inference using two separate and equally important factors; internal and external validity. What is the distinction between these factors? (4 points)
- Mitigating the effects of bias and confounding occur at every stage of the public health research cycle. Identify the various stages of research where there is opportunity to minimize these influences of potential error. (5 points)
- The researchers discuss their thoughts on brick and mortar barriers to collaboration and cross training. Discuss potential opportunities where synergy or team initiatives where these disciplines could collaborate in health care or your work setting. (5 points)
References
Goldstein, N., LeVasseur, M. & McClure, L. (2020). On the convergence of epidemiology, biostatistics,and data science, Harv Data Sci Rev.2(2), 1-17. https://hdsr.mitpress.mit.edu/pub/twqhhlhr/release/4
American Psychological Association. (2020). Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (7th ed.). https://doi.org/10.1037/0000165-000
