Health in Numbers: Quantitative Methods in Clinical & Public Health Research - Harvard University

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Quantitative Methods in Clinical and Public Health Research is the online adaptation of material from the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health's classes in epidemiology and biostatistics. Principled investigations to monitor and thus improve the health of individuals are firmly based on a sound understanding of modern quantitative methods. This involves the ability to discover patterns and extract knowledge from health data on a sample of individuals and then to infer, with measured uncertainty, the unobserved population characteristics. This course will address this need by covering the principles of biostatistics and epidemiology used for public health and clinical research. These include outcomes measurement, measures of associations between outcomes and their determinants, study design options, bias and confounding, probability and diagnostic tests, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing, power and sample size determinations, life tables and survival methods, regression methods (both, linear and logistic), and sample survey techniques. Students will analyze sample data sets to acquire knowledge of appropriate computer software. By the end of the course the successful student should have attained a sound understanding of these methods and a solid foundation for further study.

• How to analyze data sets using modern quantitative methods
• How to discover patterns and extract knowledge from health data
• The principles of biostatistics and epidemiology used for public health and clinical research, including: outcomes measurement, study design options -bias and confounding, probability and diagnostic tests, confidence intervals and hypothesis testing, power and sample size determinations, life tables and survival methods, regression methods (both, linear and logistic) and sample survey techniques