Macroepidemiology

Engineering > Biomedical Engineering > Macroepidemiology

Macroepidemiology posted by duggu on 12/7/2007

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Abstract/Syllabus

Courseware/Lectures

Test/Tutorials

Abstract/Syllabus:

Thilly, William, 20.102 Macroepidemiology (BE.102), Spring 2005. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology: MIT OpenCourseWare), http://ocw.mit.edu (Accessed 07 Jul, 2010). License: Creative Commons BY-NC-SA

Graph showing United States mortality data from Diabetes mellitus for a range of birth cohorts. (Graph courtesy of Professor Bill Thilly. Used with permission. Generated from MIT's epidemiology database Web site based on original design by Dr. Pablo Herrero-Jimenez in his MIT Ph.D. thesis, "Determination of the historical changes in primary and secondary risk factors for cancer using U.S. public health records." (2001).)

Course Highlights

This course features an extensive reading list, and a tools section with links to MIT's epidemiology database Web site plus a Java® program to analyze this mortality data.

Course Description

This course presents a challenging multi-dimensional perspective on the causes of human disease and mortality. The course focuses on analyses of major causes of mortality in the US since 1900: cancer, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, diabetes, and infectious diseases. Students create analytical models to derive estimates for historically variant population risk factors and physiological rate parameters, and conduct analyses of familial data to separately estimate inherited and environmental risks. The course evaluates the basic population genetics of dominant, recessive and non-deleterious inherited risk factors.

Technical Requirements

Java® plug-in software is required to run the Java® files found on this course site. Microsoft® Excel software is recommended for viewing the .xls files found on this course site. Free Microsoft® Excel viewer software can also be used to view the .xls file.

Syllabus

Instructor's Perspective

In brief: this little course is called "macroepidemiology" for lack of a sufficiently comprehensive term for its contents. It is offered for those students who accept the responsibility of self-education. They may benefit from the experience of carefully analyzing what is known about a common disease in the company of other students with shared interests and an instructor for whom such analyses are a self-required responsibility. They will benefit from analyses of widely-held but contested assumptions about genetic and environmental risk factors.

Complete text of Instructor's Perspective (PDF)

Readings

In lieu of a textbook, the class will read approximately 30 manuscripts from a larger set of recommended readings.

Data Analysis

Students will use compiled mortality data for two weekly assignments and the term paper. A Java®-based computer program, Cancer Fit, will be provided for this analysis.

Term Paper

Each student will choose a common disease such as a form of cancer, vascular disease or diabetes of interest to him or her, and produce a major analytical term paper with installments due every three weeks.

Grading

Title for Table Goes Here
activities	percentages
Term Paper	60%
Oral Presentation	15%
Class Participation, Including Problem Sets and Paper Installments	25%

There are no quizzes or exams

Calendar

Table for Calendar

LEC #	TOPICS	KEY DATES
1	Introduction: Dimensions of information available to define the unknown causes of common diseases
2	Public health records and estimation of age-specific risk
3	Effects of changes in diagnosis, prevention and therapy on historical mortality rates Sources of differences in reported incidence and mortality	PS 1 due
4	Mathematical models derived from histopathological observations and age-specific mortality/incidence data Examples: lung and colorectal cancers
5	Initiation
6	Promotion and Progression	Term paper chapter 1 due
7	Multiparametric Analysis of Colon Cancer
8	Multiparametric Analysis of Lung Cancer	PS 3 due
9	Role of Gender
10	Sub-populations at Risk
11	National Risk and Community Risk
12	Familial Risk Expectations
13	Familial Risk Observations	Term paper chapter 2 due
14	Population Genetics
15	Population Genetics (cont.)
16	The search for genes carrying mutations conferring risk for common diseases
17	The search for genes carrying mutations conferring risk for common diseases (cont.)
18	The search for genes carrying mutations conferring risk for common diseases (cont.)	Term paper chapter 3 due
19	The search for genes carrying mutations conferring risk for common diseases (cont.)
20	The search for genes in which mutations of initiation (and promotion, if any) occur in common human cancers
21	The origins of somatic and inherited mutations in humans
22	The origins of somatic and inherited mutations in humans (cont.)
23	Hypotheses that need testing	Term paper chapter 4 due
24	Evolution, embryogenesis and carcinogenesis (Guest lecturer: Dr. Elena V. Gostjeva) Putting it together: Gostjeva-Thilly cascade model for risk and genesis of common clonal diseases
25-27	General discussion and student presentations	Final term paper due