This course provides instruction on an array of topics specific to injuries. The goal of the class is to provide students with a broad foundation on which to apply epidemiologic concepts and methods to injury research and prevention.
On completion of the course, students will have knowledge and understanding of the following basic core competencies in injury research and prevention:
1. The ability to describe and explain injury as a public health problem
2. The ability to analyze and use injury data
3. The ability to design injury research and prevention studies.
Instruction and assignments will be formulated to address specific learning objectives, such that participants will be able to:
a. Define injury and its classification (intentional, unintentional, mechanism)
b. Explain how injury can be conceptualized in the public health model
c. Describe the leading causes of morbidity and mortality nationally and globally and describe how injuries compare with these conditions with respect to the burden on the population
d. Identify and demonstrate the use of the Haddon Matrix
e. Describe the influence of age, gender, race, and socioeconomic status on injury occurrence and outcome
f. Identify existing injury data sources and surveillance systems and recognize their methods, uses, and limitations
g. Describe how injuries are identified and coded utilizing the current international classification of disease systems
h. Locate injury related information on the Internet, identify its strengths and limitations, and describe its importance
i. Identify injury data and findings on specific topics, including motor vehicle accidents, and violence, and present the most relevant information to an audience
j. Identify the epidemiologic methods that underlie injury research studies and understand their function in portraying the causal factors in injury
k. Determine potential interventions based upon the Haddon Matrix