Introduction

This course introduces the key concepts and vocabulary associated with Clinical Epidemiology and Evidence-based Medicine that are fundamental to clinical practice and the critical appraisal of the medical literature.

Specific Objectives:

• Understand what clinical epidemiology is, and its relevance to the clinical practice of medicine through Evidence –based Medicine.

• Understand how clinical information about individuals can be classified and utilized to define “abnormal” vs. “normal”.

• Understand how to quantify disease occurrence (prevalence, cumulative incidence, and incidence-density) and make probabilistic estimates about risk (absolute risk versus relative risk).

• Understand how to analyze data from a RCT through the calculation of RR, RRR, ARR, and to describe the risks and benefits of an intervention through the calculation of NNT and NNH.

• Understand how to master the science and art of diagnosis and clinical testing (sensitivity, specificity, predictive values, and Bayes’ Theorem).

      Objectives continue next page..