Improving the Health of the Population and Evidence Based Medicine

As taught in Autumn Semester 2009

Dr Puja R Myles, School of Community Health Sciences - Epidemiology and Public Health

This module has two essential components: Evidence-Based Medicine and Public Health. Evidence-Based Medicine was introduced as a new discipline because traditionally the teaching of medicine was heavily reliant on an apprenticeship-type system with emphasis on learning from observing one’s teachers. One of the guiding principles in the NHS today is that all health care should be based on research evidence. One of the aims of this module is to cover core concepts in epidemiology and basic statistics so that you are able to understand the evidence presented in research papers and apply it to your clinical practice.

The Public Health component of this module will provide you with insight into the factors affecting the health at a population level and how these may be addressed. It also aims to show how these factors may be distributed and how this can contribute to inequalities in health between populations.

Suitable for study: Undergraduate level year 1