General provisions

One of the main activity directions of Master of Public Health training is to carry out the training on gaining a knowledge and capability of research methodology, epidemiology among doctors, health workers and researchers who are working medical and public health sector.

The curriculum provides continuously training system, increases condition of accomplishing medical and public health research at modern level. In future, its significance is to improve continuously knowledge of medical scientists and researchers as well as social workers, law, sociology, anthropology and engineering etc many sectors scientists and researchers.

The training reviews important epidemiological studies that have contributed to development of knowledge and in public health and clinical application in these areas. The emphasis of the course will be on the importance of epidemiological methods, and will give students a deeper understanding of study designs and biases in epidemiology.

Goal of curriculum

Goal of the curriculum is to provide continuously and systematically doctors, health workers, scholars, researchers and those deepening their knowledge on epidemiology and sociology with knowledge, capability and practice on research methodology and principles of epidemiology and how to use it in health research. By this course participants will gain knowledge, practice as their need.

Objectives of curriculum

1. To prepare public health workers, researchers, trainers, policy makers, decision makers, researchers who work in health sector
2. To provide doctors, health workers, researchers working in health sector with continuously education on epidemiology
3. Improve the quality of research works in public health and medical sector, health policy analysis
4. Determine confronted problems of health

Course Competencies:

• Define epidemiology and explain its objectives
• Understand and calculate the key measures of disease frequency
• Describe and calculate absolute and relative measures of comparison of disease frequencies and know how to interpret and use these measures of comparison
• Understand, define, and apply the three main elements of descriptive epidemiology; person, place and time
• Understand and define the basic principles and key public health issues in infectious disease epidemiology
• Describe the key characteristics of ecologic, cross-sectional, case-control, cohort, and experimental study designs; know the appropriate uses of each of these designs; identify the design of a particular epidemiologic study; and know the strengths and weakness of each of these different study designs
• Define, calculate, and interpret measures of association such as the odds ratio and the relative risk
• Understand and define the basic principles of public health screening; define and calculate measures of accuracy and effectiveness of screening tests
• Describe and interpret the important characteristics of causation
• Understand and apply appropriate methods of critically evaluating published epidemiologic literature
• Have a comprehensive understanding and appreciation of the role of epidemiology in disease control and prevention

Learner outcomes
Upon completion of this program, students will be able to:

1. Conduct high-quality epidemiologic research—including appropriate design, statistical analysis of data, and interpretation and reporting of results.

2. Evaluate and conduct clinical trials.

3. Design, implement, and evaluate methods for quality control.

4. Obtain funds through well-written grant proposals.

5. Write scientific papers for submission to scientific journals.

6. Critically review the literature and identify strengths and weaknesses of design, analyses, and conclusions.

Academic Integrity
We take academic integrity very seriously. Students caught cheating will be dealt with sternly. Academic dishonesty is a very serious offense, especially at the graduate school level. Please take a moment to review the University policy on academic integrity located at: www.mnums.edu.mn

• Cheating: Intentionally using or attempting to use unauthorized materials, information, or study aids in any academic exercise; copying from another student’s examination; submitting work for an in-class exam that was prepared in advance; representing material prepared by another as one’s own work; submitting the same work in more than one course without receiving prior permission from both course instructors; violating rules governing administration of examinations; violating any rules relating to academic conduct of a course or program.
• Fabrication: Intentional and unauthorized falsification or invention of any data, information, or citation in an academic exercise.
• Plagiarism: Intentionally representing the words, ideas, or sequence of ideas of another as one’s own in any academic exercise; failure to attribute any of the following: quotations, paraphrases, or borrowed information.

Study outline

Week	Date	Course Plan	Assignment	Quiz	Teacher
Week 1	10/15	Topic : Introduction of Epidemilogy		Quiz #1	Gantuya D
Week 2	10/22	Topic : Data collection methods 1			Davaa G
Week 3	10/29	Topic : Data collection methods 2		Quiz #2	Davaa G
Week 4	11/5	Principles of Epidemiologic Study Designs 1			Gantuya D
Week 5	11/12	Topic: Clinical Epidemiology			Gantuya D
Week 6	11/19	Topic: Cohort study design	Assignment: # 1.	Quiz #3	Gantuya D
Week 7	11/26	Topic : Risk assessment			Gantuya D
Week 8	12/3	Topic: Analytical study designs - Case control study	Assignment: # 2.		Gantuya D
Week 9	12/10	Topic: Principles of disease distribution	Assignment: # 3.		Davaa G
Week 10	12/17	Topic: Experimental study design	Assignment: # 4.		Davaa G
Week 11	12/24	Topic: Communicable disease epidemiology			Davaa G
Week 12	12/31	Topic: Surveillance		Quiz #4	Davaa G

Methods of Student Evaluation
The course grade will be based on the following criteria:

• 20% of the final grade based on four assignments. Each assignment counts for 5 points.
• 20% of the final grade will be based on four short quizzes administered during the sessions.
• 20% of the final grade will be based on mid-term exam. The mid-term exam will have 10 questions with multiple choices answer. Each question counts for 2 points.
• 30% of the final grade based on the final exam. The final exam will be comprehensive covering materials from the entire training. The final exam will have 2 case works; each case work will have 5 questions and 10 multiple choice questions.
• 10% of Participation
• TOTAL = 100%.

Final grades for the course will be determined using the following grading scale.

• A 90-100%
• B 80-89%
• C 70-79%
• D 60-69%
• F below 60%