Intensive Course in Applied Epidemiology

This course is for anyone looking to ground themselves in the key concepts, study design and methodological considerations in epidemiological research.

While we will cover the principles of epidemiological analysis, how different approaches should be employed for different study designs, and how these should be interpreted, it does not cover advanced statistical analysis techniques.

The course covers methods common to all chronic disease epidemiology, although is particularly suited to clinicians, researchers and other practitioners in pain and musculoskeletal disease, due to the specific research expertise of our faculty members.

Our course is taught in an intimate face-to-face setting at the award-winning Sir Duncan Rice Library at our historic Old Aberdeen campus. Sessions run all day from mid-morning on Monday to lunchtime on Friday and consist of a variety of lecture presentations, interactive activities, practical exercises and open discussion.

Our presenters have over 50 years combined experience teaching in an intensive face-to-face format, and the course consistently receives positive responses from delegates.

What the course covers

The course covers all the key skills you will need to embark upon epidemiological research, including:

• Measuring incidence and prevalence of disease within a chosen population
• Study design, including cohort studies, case-control studies, randomised controlled trials, as well as case-crossover and case-cohort studies
• Key methodological issues, including how to make sure your study data is valid and reliable, and how to minimise bias and avoid or assess confounding.
• How to incorporate qualitative research methods into your epidemiological studies and how they can enhance understanding of quantitative data.
• Assessment of causation from associations
• How to bring your theoretical knowledge and skills together to put them into practice

Key skills

The course will equip you with key skills in epidemiological research, including how to:

• Choose the right study design
• Measure disease in a population
• Understand methodological issues such as validity, reliability and bias and confounding
• Incorporate qualitative and mixed-methods approaches within your study
• Infer causation from associations
• Put your theoretical knowledge and skills into practice

Programme

The following is an exemplar of our typical course programme. Schedule subject to change.

Monday

• Epidemiology for tomorrow's world
• Measuring and comparing the burden of disease
• Key epidemiological study designs - the case control study

Tuesday

• Key epidemiological study designs - the cohort study
• Selecting a study sample, and unpicking confidence intervals
• Are we measuring what we think we're measuring? - issues of validity and reliability

Wednesday

• Stepping away from the normal - less commonly used observational study designs
• Logistic regression
• Interventional studies - the randomised controlled trials

Thursday

• Doing things that RCTs cannot do - the use of disease registries in epidemiology
• Incorporating qualitative research into epidemiological studies
• How to avoid bias and control for confounding
• Chocolate and Nobel prizes - deciding when an association might be causal

Friday

• Putting theory into practice

Course presenters

Professor Gary J Macfarlane
Head of Epidemiology

Professor Macfarlane is Dean of Research (Interdisciplinary Research and Research Impact) at the University of Aberdeen. He has been Professor of Epidemiology at The University of Aberdeen since 2005 and previously held the same post at the University of Manchester from 1999. He trained in Statistics/Computing Science and then Medicine at University of Glasgow before undertaking his PhD at the University of Bristol. He worked at the European Institute of Oncology in Milan, before leading a programme of pain research at the Arthritis Research UK Epidemiology Unit at the University of Manchester. His subsequent research has focused on musculoskeletal disorders and the research group which he leads undertakes research using epidemiology, clinical trials, disease and drug registers and health services research. He is a Chartered Statistician of the Royal Statistical Society as well as a Fellow of the Faculty of Public Health Medicine.

Professor Gareth T Jones
Professor in Epidemiology

Gareth is a non-clinical epidemiologist and is currently Professor in Epidemiology and deputy head of the Epidemiology Group at the University of Aberdeen. He trained in epidemiology at the University of Manchester in (what was then) the Arthritis Research Campaign Epidemiology Unit where he undertook a PhD in the epidemiology of low back pain in schoolchildren, then worked as a Lecturer in Rheumatic Disease Epidemiology. He moved to the University of Aberdeen in 2005 as a Senior Lecturer. He is currently Professor in Epidemiology and deputy head of the Epidemiology Group. He works on all aspects of the Epidemiology Group programmes of research including studies of aetiology, outcome, and management of arthritis and other musculoskeletal conditions, with a major focus on musculoskeletal pain (including fibromyalgia) and inflammatory disease (axial spondyloarthritis and psoriatic arthritis). He has published around 140 original research papers, reviews, and book chapters.

Course fees

• University / healthcare professionals: £1150
• Commercial / industry: £1450

Please note we are no longer taking registrations for our 2025 event.

Booking and registration

Registration for the 2025 course is currently closed. Further announcements about courses for 2026 will be made in due course.

All registrations after registration closing dates are subject to availability, and will be charged at a rate of £1500 per attendee.

Refunds will not be available for withdrawals after the closing date.

If you have any questions about event registrations please contact epidemiology@abdn.ac.uk

If you have any questions about ICAE, or about our course offers in general, please drop us an email at:

epidemiology@abdn.ac.uk