The disciplines of epidemiology and biostatistics involve collecting, classifying, summarizing, organizing, analyzing, and interpreting numerical information relevant to biological, medical, and public health problems. Epidemiologists/biostatisticians play a central role in biomedical research; they are involved in all stages of a study – from design, to data collection, data analysis, inference, and interpretation of the results, testing hypotheses, and developing statistical models as needed in the process. Biostatisticians and epidemiologists model relationships between individual and environmental factors and health outcomes; identify risk factors for diseases; design, monitor, analyze, interpret, and report results of biomedical studies; and develop statistical methodologies to address questions arising from medical and public health data.
The program offers a regional focus. To provide the training necessary to master the fundamental skills of epidemiology and biostatistics, the master’s program encompasses 42.5 credits (68 ECTS) of coursework in the key competencies of these fields and both theoretical and applied epidemiological and statistical techniques. Courses include analytic study design in epidemiologic methods; basics of statistical inference; and epidemiology of chronic and infectious disease. The program requires a year-long practicum (20 credits or 32 ECTS), in which the tools of epidemiology and biostatistics are applied to a public health problem.
