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for a past academic year. Please see the current academic year for up to date information.
| Unit name |
Non-communicable Disease Epidemiology |
| Unit code |
BRMSM0012 |
| Credit points |
20 |
| Level of study |
M/7
|
| Teaching block(s) |
Teaching Block 1 (weeks 1 - 12)
|
| Unit director |
Dr. Theresa Redaniel |
| Open unit status |
Not open |
| Pre-requisites |
None
|
| Co-requisites |
None
|
| School/department |
Bristol Medical School |
| Faculty |
Faculty of Health Sciences |
Description including Unit Aims
The aims of this unit are to:
- Give students an appreciation of the distribution and trends of non-communicable diseases in the UK and globally
- Convey an understanding of the risk factors for non-communicable diseases, and appropriate control and prevention strategies
- Enable students to describe major challenges in studying non-communicable diseases
The unit will cover both risk-factor epidemiology (e.g. social epidemiology, life course epidemiology), and outcome-based epidemiology (including cardiovascular disease, cancer and mental health).
Intended Learning Outcomes
By the end of this unit, students should be able to:
- Analyse the distribution and trends in non-communicable diseases in the UK and globally
- Investigate distribution, trends and risk factors for common non-communicable diseases
- Apply appropriate research designs to study the distribution, trends and risk factors for non-communicable diseases
- Apply appropriate study designs to evaluate interventions to prevent non-communicable diseases
- Critically appraise published studies of non-communicable disease epidemiology
Teaching Information
Teaching will include learning activities set by the tutor including lectures (synchronous and asynchronous), small group work, discussions, individual tasks, and practical activities (face to face or online).
Directed and self-directed learning will include activities such as reading, accessing web-based supplementary materials, critical analysis and completion of assessments
Assessment Information
Formative assessment: Informal questioning, quizzes and group exercises in lectures, tutorials and homework. These form an assessment for learning and will not contribute to the final unit mark. Students will be given the opportunity to work through a progress test comprised of short answer questions to prepare students for the summative assessment.
Summative assessment: The unit is assessed by two pieces of coursework:
- Presentation and short written report highlighting the distribution, trends and risk factors for a non-communicable disease, and an evaluation of the interventions to control the disease (ILOs 1-5; 50% of total mark).
- Coursework (50%): Individual assignment consisting of short answer style questions based on problem solving or interpretation of hypothetical scenarios and/or real data from published studies and/or elements of critical appraisal (ILOs 1-5; 50% of total mark;)
An average mark of 50% across the two assessments is required to pass the unit.
Reading and References
There is no essential unit text book.
Recommended reading:
- A life course approach to chronic disease epidemiology. Diana Kuh and Yoav Ben Shlomo. Oxford Medical Publications. 2004
- The Health Gap: The Challenge of an Unequal World. Michael Marmot. Bloomsbury Press. 2015
- Contribution of six risk factors to achieving the 25×25 non-communicable disease mortality reduction target: a modelling study. Kontis V et al. Lancet 2014; 384: 427-37
- WHO website on non-communicable disease: http://www.who.int/nmh/en/
