"PHDA 03 and 04 provided useful tools for me. I had always wanted to learn to use ArcGIS software to explore health data, and have both a geography and clinical background, so PHDA 03 and PHDA 04 were especially interesting."
"PHDA 03 and 04 provided useful tools for me. I had always wanted to learn to use ArcGIS software to explore health data, and have both a geography and clinical background, so PHDA 03 and PHDA 04 were especially interesting."
"The growing importance of spatial thinking in health policy and epidemiology underscores the immense value of this course for researchers and practitioners alike. As a frequent user of GIS, I found this course to be an indispensable update to both my technical skills and theoretical understanding of health geography and spatial data analysis.
The course material challenged us to think creatively and conduct our own projects with the support of the instructor, while the weekly lab assignments guided us closely through the necessary procedures. Weekly discussions encourage us to discuss issues and themes in health GIS and share ideas, an invaluable experience for learning and networking."
I learned about the PHDA program through browsing on web and was motivated to get more training in population health data analysis while working full-time.
Although the course load was a bit heavy at times, I think I’ve learned a lot and developed hands-on experience in analyzing population health data using SAS and ArcGIS.
I have not yet had a chance to utilize all the knowledge and skills I’ve gained in my current work, but definitely have a better understanding of results that are analyzed using ArcGIS.
The strengths of this program include: good organization of coursework, exposure to variety of relevant topics, hands-on experience using several analytical software, excellent support and feedback by instructors, and a flexible schedule.
I would definitely recommend colleagues and others to take this program for further professional development.
My program experience has been great and thank you for all the support I received from instructors and staff members in the PHDA program.
"Courses which benefited me the most are PHDA 03 Population Health and Geographic Information System (GIS) and PHDA 04 Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection.
I am really satisfied with these courses especially the hands-on experience gained while using ArcMap to map diseases and assess spatial dependences. Skills developed include generating choropleth map, joining attribute tables to shapefile and perform geographically weighted regressions."
"The Working with Administrative Data was one of the courses that provided me with the greatest benefits. As I was completing the PHDA 01 course, my workplace, the New Brunswick Institute for Research Data and Training, was just receiving its first health data set. Having had the opportunity to use BC’s administrative datasets such as the Discharge Abstract Database (DAD) provided me with a first glance at what our provincial data would look like, and how I could manipulate and analyze them."
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