HC70027W -Epidemiology and Biostatistics Assignment Guidance

Introduction

• LO 1. Summarise and critique the principles (and theories) of epidemiology and biostatistics.
• LO 2. Critically evaluate the epidemiological research process and the strengths and weaknesses of different study designs to investigate different kinds of public health questions.
• LO 3. Critically appraise the content and quality of epidemiological studies and the strength of evidence of their findings.
• LO 4. Interpret (and apply) common descriptive and inferential statistics, and how they can be used to for policy and decision-making.

Assignment

Write an essay discussing your understanding of key aspects of epidemiology and biostatistics, study designs and critically appraising the design and quality of the findings of three different types of studies on a public health topic you have chosen.

Title

Create your own title along the same lines as the example essay.

Introduction 

The essay discusses key aspects of epidemiology and biostatistics. It then critically appraises - deeply reviews - the design and quality of the findings of three published primary research study journal articles. Finally, it explains the importance of epidemiology and biostatistics to supporting evidence-informed public health decision-making.

Epidemiology and Biostatistics 

• Explain the role epidemiology and biostatistics in public health and how it applies to public health practice. This can include discussing one key principle of epidemiology and 1 key
  principle of biostatistics. [LO1]
• Explain the general research steps (stages/strategy) when designing all epidemiological research studies and explain why they are important [LO2]. Do NOT discuss outbreak or field epidemiology steps.
• Critical appraisal three research study designs (LO3, LO4)
• Critically review the three articles - a cross-sectional study, a cohort study and a randomised controlled trial (in any order) - one by one.
• The focus is on understanding how to extract the key information that we can then use to work out how good quality a research study is.
• You will use two step approach using two sets of critical appraisal checklists:
• For the main part of the essay you use the adapted JBI critical appraisal checklist with the 12 questions.
• In the Appendix you will provide 3 completed Joanna Briggs International (JBI) checklists.

Conclusion

Discuss how this epidemiology research is part of an evidence-informed public health framework that supports good quality and effective public health and government decision-making.