COURSES OF INSTRUCTION

Epidemiology 247
Epidemiology of Injuries in the Elderly

Professor Roberta Malmgren has successfully taught this course for the last 15 years, over which time enrollment has increased from an initial 10-12 students to the current level of approximately 25. The course focuses on the methodologic challenges and solutions to understanding injuries in the elderly and, particularly, how strategies might be developed for prevention and control.

Epidemiology 251
Epidemiology of Nonintentional Injuries

SCIPRC’s former director, Professor Jess Kraus, taught this course for more than 25 years, with an average enrollment of 25 students. The course draws students from across the School of Public Health. In 2008-2009, the course will be taught by Dr. Paul Hsu, who has numerous years of occupational and injury research experience. The course covers pertinent epidemiologic methods and core competencies for the study and control of nonintentional trauma, including trauma from motor vehicle crashes, house fires, occupational exposures, falls, and other major external causes, with a focus on research approaches, data sources, and analytical techniques.

Epidemiology 252
Epidemiology of Assault, Homicide, and Suicide

Since 1981 SCIPRC has supported this course, which covers the description and critical evaluation of epidemiologic methods in understanding incidence risk factors and prevention strategies of violence and violence-related injury. It has been quite popular and draws students from the School of Public Health and the Departments of Social Welfare, Sociology, and Psychology. This wide mix of students ensures a breadth of opinion, approach, and concern about the problem of violence and violent injury in the United States. In 2008-2009, this course will be co-taught by Billie Weiss, a national leader in violence prevention, and Dr. Paul Hsu, one of the Center researchers, who have collaborated on multiple violence prevention and intentional injury research projects.

Epidemiology 253
Acute Traumatic and Chronic Repetitive Injuries from Work-Related Exposures

During his tenure, Professor Kraus taught this course approximately every other year, drawing students from both Epidemiology and Environmental Health in the School of Public Health. Following Professor Kraus’s retirement, Professor Beate Ritz, has assumed responsibility for this course. This course addresses the magnitude, scope, research approaches, and intervention strategies for work-related acute traumatic injuries as well as chronic repetitive (musculoskeletal) workplace injuries: a problem of growing concern in many quarters in the United States.

Epidemiology 259
Disaster Epidemiology

This course examines the fundamentals of epidemiologic methodology as applied to disaster, risk factors for disaster-related morbidity and mortality, and practical approaches to disaster-related surveillance. The focus will be on natural hazards, such as earthquakes and hurricanes. Case studies will be selected from the U.S. and other countries. The course was taught for a number of years by Dr. Corrine Peek-Asa, now at the University of Iowa, and will be offered by Dr. Megumi Kano, who has conducted research and published in the area of disaster epidemiology.

Epidemiology 417
Injury Prevention Strategies and Countermeasures

This course is offered once a year. It covers a wide array of injury prevention strategies and countermeasures that have worked and those that have failed, as well as the factors that are predictive of both. In the coming years, the course will be offered by Dr. Michael Klesh, who is also a principal scientist at a multidisciplinary consulting firm. He has extensive experience with exposure assessment, environmental health, and occupational and other injury-related fields. His research has evaluated the potential health effects of air pollution, arsenic, asbestos, beryllium, hexavalent chromium, electric and magnetic fields, ergonomic factors, mercury, perchlorate, radiofrequency energy, and trichloroethylene.
 

METHODS COURSES FEATURING INJURY DATASETS

Biostatistics 406
Applied Multivariate Statistics

Taught by Professor Abdelmonem Afifi, Professor Emeritus of Biostatistics and former Dean of the School of Public Health, this course covers various topics in applied multivariate analysis including multiple linear regression, logistic regression, principal components and factor analysis, cluster analysis and survival analysis. It has been extremely popular and typically draws 55-75 students. Professor Afifi was the 2008 inaugural recipient of the Dean’s distinguished teaching award for exemplary teaching in the UCLA School of Public Health. Professor Afifi uses data collected by injury related projects that are operated out of SCIPRC throughout the course.

Biostatistics 411
Analysis of Correlated Data

First offered by Professor Afifi in Spring 2003, this course has a large enrollment and uses many databases to illustrate statistical methods, including those with an injury context such as California’s Master Mortality file, the New York City home attendant back injury file, and the motorcycle crash injury data file, among others. The course will be taught by Dr. Robert Weiss in Winter of 2009.

Biostatistics Summer Course
The Essentials of Clinical Investigation: Developing a Research Proposal

This two-week intensive summer course is being offered by Professor Abdelmonem Afifi through the UCLA General Clinical Research Center. The course covers developing grant applications, research design and methods, writing scientific papers, institutional review boards, data and safety monitoring, ethical responsibilities of investigators, and an overview of the proposal award process at UCLA.

Community Health Sciences 211 A/B
Program Planning, Research, & Evaluation in Community Health Sciences

CHS 211 is a problem-based learning two-quarter course covering the interrelated topics of program development and evaluation. The first quarter in the series focuses on program development, planning, and administration. The second quarter focuses on research methods and program evaluation. Drs. Linda Bourque, Deborah Glik, and Michael Prelip, all of whom are affiliated with SCIPRC, have co-taught this course for several of the last 10 years. In Spring of 2008, the course was co-taught by Professor Linda Bourque and Dr. Michele Wood. Instructors routinely use programs for injury prevention as examples throughout the two-quarter series.

Community Health Sciences 212
Advanced Social Research Methods in Health

Taught by Professor Linda Bourque, CHS 212 introduces students to the analysis of community-based survey data using data sets archived online. In 2009, the course will be redesigned to use the National Survey of Disaster and Emergency Preparedness conducted in 2007-2008 to assess whether households have prepared for future terrorist events and natural disasters.

Community Health Sciences M218
Questionnaire Design and Administration

This course, also taught by Professor Bourque, is one of the most popular courses in the School because of its broad and wide-ranging application. Over the quarter, students design and pretest questionnaires, questionnaire specifications, codebooks, and IRB materials. Many course examples utilize questionnaires developed for past studies of natural disasters, terrorism, and injury prevention and control.

Community Health Sciences 282
Communication in Health Promotion and Education

This course, offered by Professor Deborah Glik, is one of the more popular courses offered through the Department of Community Health Sciences. It covers a wide variety of Public Health issues that require promotion and education, many of which are injury related, including those having to do with the impact of mass media on violence and violent behavior.

Community Health Sciences 288
Health Communication in Popular Media

This course covers the ways in which popular media portray health and health issues, how media are consumed, and the impact of media on health and health behaviors. Strategies for understanding and influencing the media are presented and include: media content analysis, audience research, and assessment of media effects, media advocacy, health journalism, media literacy, and entertainment education. This course was recently developed and taught by Professor Deborah Glik and was well received by students.

Community Health Sciences 292
Communication and Media Development in Health Promotion and Education

This new course, also taught by Professor Glik, is an extension of CHS 282 and will focus principally on media evaluation and its role in health promotion. A number of public health injury exposure models will be used for illustrative purposes.

Community Health Sciences 485
Resource Development for Community-Based Programs

This course is taught annually by Dr. Michael Prelip, DPA, in both the traditional and Health Professional programs of the Department of Community Health Sciences. It has been well received by students, with a typical enrollment of 25 students.

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