Provisional Course content & Methods.

The course has been developed, since 1990, both at Imperial College London and the University of Oxford, by a leading research team with extensive experience of advising policy-makers, including in real-time outbreak situations. It is designed to satisfy the growing demand for a thorough, but short, introduction or update of the essential elements and practically-relevant aspects of infectious disease epidemiology. It is updated annually to reflect the most recent developments in the field. Diseases covered include avian influenza, SARS, HIV, TB, MRSA, and malaria and other vector-borne diseases.

Teaching is interactive, with the key concepts introduced in lectures. Most of the learning takes place in computer practicals, question-and-answer sessions and small-group discussions of key topics and published papers. These are designed to encourage reflection and consolidation of the key concepts.

In the first week, the basic conceptual, mathematical, statistical and computational tools needed for a rigorous approach to infectious disease epidemiology are introduced. Keynote lectures and case studies covering a wide range of topics place the current use of mathematical modelling in context, illustrating how it contributes in a number of ways to epidemiological studies, policy-making and evaluation. The focus of the second week is on extended, in-depth, hands-on, small-group projects, complemented by lectures addressing practical case studies.

This course does not merely illustrate some models, but rather we maximise your learning by helping you to make your own and apply them to real-world data, for example data from the 2003 outbreak of SARS in Hong Kong.

Every participant is allocated a computer with internet access throughout the course and is given an extensive course manual and a licenced copy of the user-friendly modelling package, Berkeley Madonna to take away, along with all the models used and developed on the course. There is no formal assessment but a certificate of attendance is issued.

CME approval has been sought from the Royal College of Physicians, in 2008 50 credits were awarded for this course.

Social events include a dinner banquet, special buffet lunches with department staff, a guided visit to the Alexander Fleming museum, where penicillin, the first antibiotic, was discovered. There will be numerous opportunities to participate in informal social activites with a very friendly department.