During this course, the candidate will complete one (or two) of the following core projects:

1. Participate as a member of a team and/or lead an investigation of a health problem requiring timely investigation and/or public health action;

2. Conduct an analysis of  a health dataset;

3. Establish or evaluate a surveillance system for a disease or condition of relevance to their field placement; or

4. Design and implement a epidemiological study to examine an issue of public health importance to the field placement, then analyse and interpret the data.  

At the end of this course students will be able to:

• Demonstrate the ability to apply the skills learnt in coursework to the field;
• Demonstrate critical thinking and professional epidemiologic skills relevant to the needs of the public health system; and
• Demonstrate effective writing and presentation skills.

Depending on which project is completed, the following project specific outcomes may also be met:

• Demonstrate an understanding of the “real life” difficulties associated with a rapid response; the ability to make epidemiologic decisions in the field and experience in conducing outbreak investigations.
• Demonstrate the ability to perform descriptive statistics (essential), and where appropriate, analytical statistical methods (desirable); and interpret and summarise the results of the analysis.
• Demonstrate an understanding of public health surveillance and critically analyse a surveillance system using the United States CDC guidelines or similar instrument; OR
• Demonstrate an understanding of the research process as it relates to operational, field-based research and demonstrate the ability to design and implement a applied epidemiology project and to analyse and interpret the results.

A report of the field project(s), written in an academic style, including a preface with the following elements: role of the student in the project; lessons learnt; public health impact; and a structured abstract.

Full time placement in a State or Territory health department or similar organisation for at least 35 hours per week. Regular contact with academic and field supervisors via email and phone is expected.

Satisfactory result in the corresponding coursework course before commencing each of the field projects:

1. POPH8316 Outbreak Investigation
2. POPH8313 Analysis of public health data
3. POPH8317 Public Health surveillance
4. POPH8315 Methods in Applied Epidemiology

Completion of Masters level courses on Epidemiology and Biostatistics from a recognised School of Public Health (either in Australia or internationally), or completion of Fundamentals of Epidemiology and Fundamentals of Biostatistics short courses held at the ANU.

David Heymann (ed).  Control of Communicable Disease Manual. 18^th Edition. American Public Health Association, Washington, 2004. ISBN: 0-87553-034-6

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