Description
At times, human societies have difficulty separating fact from fallacy. This is especially true during times of stress, such as when the Spanish flu swept the globe killing millions of people in 1918-1919. Uncertainties and false conclusions regarding the identity of the specific pathogen and the mode of transfer from one individual to another led to delayed or poor decisions that resulted in significantly more deaths. Health and human services were far exceeded and measures were taken that most would find unacceptable today. HIV/AIDS is another example of where the blend of fact and fallacy has led to the death of millions. Modern epidemiology has a set of approaches designed to help separate fact from fallacy and to help the human population effectively detect, identify, monitor, contain, prevent, and possibly eradicate a new or existing disease. In this course you will learn about these epidemiologic principles and concepts (e.g., confounding, bias, causal mechanisms) all within the