Testimonials

PHDA 04 Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection

"I was browsing for some relevant programs that would complement my current job as an epidemiologist. The PHDA courses looked good, particularly the GIS ones which I wanted to learn as it hadn’t been part of my education up to that point. The coursework was comprehensive but not too time consuming.  The GIS courses were fantastic and provided great information. I liked the method of instruction – videos that walked you through the steps of an assignment accompanied by PDF’s, which I thought helped me learn efficiently." > read full testimonial
Dorian Lunny, Epidemiologist, Northwestern Health Unit

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"It was really good for me to gain more experience working with large data sets and use a secure research environment to get used to the complexities of various kinds of datasets we come across daily. The spatial data and network analysis work, applied longitudinal analysis techniques and foundational SAS skills I learned really benefitted my research work. Now when I am faced with new problems, I feel better equipped and much more confident to handle them.

I have done some online courses before. I felt the courses in this program were well organized. The labs were very useful and very applied, instructors were always available to answer questions and the weekly or biweekly course modules provided structure but also some flexibility."  > read full testimonial
Gina Martin, Research Associate, Centre for Addictions Research of BC

In-person Workshops

Structural Equation Modeling

"This workshop provided an excellent combination of understanding principles of SEM, how to generate and evaluate models and how to use SEM software. A great and useful workshop."
Miguel Ruz, PhD student, University of British Columbia

PHDA 01 Working with Administrative Data

"The course was well structured. Through the course, I learned: a formal approach to developing, structuring and answering a research question using administrative data; how to clearly define the study population; how to develop a flow chart to illustrate, and guide, the development of an analytical dataset; and SAS skills. It was an excellent course and a good refresher for me, as it has been 5 years since I’ve done data analysis. A number of course assignments required me to pair with a fellow student and undergo peer review of one another’s code. It was interesting to see how my peer structured their code to produce their dataset. I enjoyed and learned a lot from this exchange. The flexibility of distance learning meant that it was possible to complete work at my own pace and schedule. It was also helpful to learn from students in different locations, who worked in related fields but had different strengths, skills and perspectives.

Finally, this course gave me experience working with administrative datasets and tools that can be difficult to access on the job. The opportunity to work with samples of real data exposed me to some of the challenges I could face at work in learning, cleaning, formatting and analyzing the data.  I would highly recommend this course and the PHDA program to my colleagues. It’s a well-structured and organized program and provides a good theoretical and practical approach to population health data analysis."
Esther Parker, Senior Policy Analyst, BC Ministry of Health

PHDA 03 Population Health and Geographic Information Systems

"The PHDA 03 Population and GIS course provided me with a skill set that I would have had difficulty learning on my own. I was able to apply training from this course and the Epidemiological Statistics course (PHDA 02) to some of my current work that is assessing how we can improve quality of life related follow-up for British Columbian cancer patients after they have received their treatment. We were interested in seeing how follow-up for British Columbian patients differs with different levels of access to resources based on their geographical location.  The analysis would have been much more difficult without the skills that I had learned in these two courses." > read full testimonial
Brent Parker, Population & Radiation Oncology Research Coordinator, BC Cancer Agency

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"The skills learned in this programme are highly and directly relevant to my doctoral research, and are being used on a near-daily basis. For example, I use both SAS and GIS to analyse various administrative data sets, and have found that the statistical background gleaned from this programmes has enabled me to read more critically and use more sophisticated analyses in my own work.

The diversity of courses is an immediate strength, as is the online format. Every instructor was highly engaged and enthusiastic, and was happy to have discussions about course material and further topics via e-mail." > read full testimonial
Blake Walker, PhD Candidate

In-person Workshops

Introduction to Statistical Software Package R

"A good kick start to get over the initial learning curve for using R."
Anders Erikson, PhD student, University of Victoria

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"I feel this is a very unique program that combines the use of data analytics, statistical software and focused learning objectives related to the field of health. I also appreciated the fact that it was a fully online program with well-organized lectures, readings and remotely accessed lab work in health data analytics.

Overall the program was very helpful to my knowledge and skill development in the field of healthcare analytics.  The program exceeded my expectations particularly because of the remotely accessed data analytic lab work that was more challenging than I anticipated. This work was very practical and very much oriented to real life case examples. The calibre of students in my courses was also very high as most were working professionals who brought valuable experience and knowledge to the discussion forums and project work. " > read full testimonial
Alexey Skiba, Data Analyst, College of Registered Nurses of British Columbia

PHDA 06 Health Services Program Monitoring and Evaluation

"The Health Evaluation and Program Monitoring (PHDA 06) course really helped me land a job after graduation. PHDA 06 was different from the other PHDA courses. It felt a bit like a satellite course in the program as it included a health evaluation project rather than data analysis lab work. I learned a lot from the peer review process we used.  I have applied evaluation skills that I learned from this course, including logic models, evaluation methodology, gantt charts and interview guides." > read full testimonial
Jackson Flagg, Evaluation Lead

PHDA 06 Health Services Program Monitoring and Evaluation

"I enjoyed the Health Evaluation course (PHDA 06). Although I am familiar with this subject area, I found the concepts were presented in an effective way. Over the 12 weeks, we put together a health evaluation proposal. Work from each weekly module contributed to this final project. I think this was an interesting way to learn about the practical aspects of Health Evaluation."
Louis Wong, Epidemiologist

PHDA 04 Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection

"The GIS courses, PHDA 03 Population Health and GIS and PHDA 04 Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection provided the greatest benefits. They were excellent and introduced brand new skills for me. Prior to taking these courses I had some brief exposure to GIS within my Master’s program and through the free online PopData courses. The PHDA 03 and PHDA 04 course labs were very detailed and instructional, offering good balance between theory and practice. The courses generally had enough materials I could take away to continue working independently." 
Sophie Zhang, Program Administrative Coordinator, Canadian Mental Health Association, BC Division

In-person Workshops

Multilevel and Hierarchical Linear Modeling

"This workshop is an example of how workshops should be structured. It was interesting, very educational, useful for acquiring knowledge, beneficial for professional growth and future application and more. Thanks!"
Jolanta Aleksejuniene, Assistant Professor, University of British Columbia

PHDA 03 Population Health and Geographic Information Systems

"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."
Blake Byron Walker, PhD student, Geography

In-person Workshops

Structural Equation Modeling

"This is an excellent workshop – having a perfect balance between technical details and hands on practice. I enjoyed the days for the upgrading of my statistical skills to a new level and look forward to applying the skills in my work on Health Service Management."
Mingful Lui, Senior Statistician, Alberta Health Services

PHDA 03 Population Health and Geographic Information Systems

"The GIS courses, PHDA 03 Population Health and GIS and PHDA 04 Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection provided the greatest benefits. They were excellent and introduced brand new skills for me. Prior to taking these courses I had some brief exposure to GIS within my Master’s program and through the free online PopData courses. The PHDA 03 and PHDA 04 course labs were very detailed and instructional, offering good balance between theory and practice. The courses generally had enough materials I could take away to continue working independently."
Sophy Zhang, Program Administrative Coordinator, Canadian Mental Health Association, BC Division

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"I would recommend this program to anyone working in the public health field that is handling or interpreting data and looking to update or acquire new skills. The courses were of high quality, good value and appropriate for anyone at the introductory or intermediate level.

For a program that is delivered completely online, each course was organized and delivered very well. Most of the instructors were very quick with their replies to questions from students. All of the courses used practical examples to explain the material which I found really helpful for understanding how to apply the concepts in practice. Even though the courses required a bit more work and time commitment than I initially planned for, I felt each of them challenged me and taught me new concepts and skills that I can take away and use immediately in my work." > read full testimonial
Jenn Dixon, Research Associate in the field of Population and Public Health

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"I think the highly trained, expert instructors, who are approachable and provide excellent feedback are a major strength. Certainly, the small class sizes allow for that individualized feedback and a continual dialogue with instructors in the discussion boards as well. I think the Moodle course site is very easy to use, and in general, the courses were very well organized.

Through the program, I came to learn about the enormous benefits of using already-collected administrative health data, and the process for doing so. I think my skills with SAS and ArcGIS will be the most useful to me, but the larger concepts of data integrity, (PHDA 01), what type of analysis is used in certain situations (PHDA 02), and considerations when doing spatial analysis (PHDA 04) are immensely important as well. > read full testimonial

Amy Klepetar, Assistant Professor and Coodinator, School of Nursing, University of Northern British Columbia-Terrace

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"I found a strength of the program to be the engagement of the other students, who are usually all from diverse backgrounds with varying levels of experience with the content. It was helpful  to learn from each other. The workload was also quite manageable for those who are working full-time in addition to the courses. The teachers also all seemed knowledgeable and passionate about the topics, and were willing to help students answer their questions or provide assistance for the course projects." > read full testimonial
Sarah Costa, Health Economist, Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control, BC Cancer Agency

PHDA 03 Population Health and Geographic Information Systems

"Overall, the PHDA 03 course experience was great. The greatest benefit to me was learning about GIS and practicing the learning through lab assignments with ArcGIS." > read full testimonial
Youn Choi, Senior Analyst

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"I would definitely recommend colleagues and others to take this program for further professional development.

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." > read full testimonial
Lily Zhou, Senior Researcher

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"The program’s strength emerged from how the courses were offered sequentially (eg: PHDA 03 and then PHDA 04) and the incorporation of Lab work into the course curriculum which provided the opportunity for more practical knowledge to be gained. Another strength is the friendly learning environment and willingness of the instructors to go an extra mile to assist students to understand concepts and course materials." > read full testimonial
Samuel Essien, PhD Candidate, School of Population and Public Health, University of Saskatchewan

In-person Workshops

Introduction to Statistical Software Package R

"The course was a good introduction to R. The handout materials were excellent."
Peter Choi, Clinical Research Director and Associate Professor, Department of Anesthesiology, Pharmacology and Therapeutics, University of British Columbia

PHDA 01 Working with Administrative Data

"The Working with Administrative Data course covered a wide range of topics from ethical and privacy issues encountered when using administrative data for research to data management of complex datasets. The instructors ensured all students were able to do the assignments using SAS. Their support has helped me build skills that I now often use at work. The training datasets were also useful in building applied skills when using administrative data to answer research questions. I would recommend this course for anyone who is working in population and public health and uses administrative data in their job."
Gina Martin, Research Associate, Centre for Addictions Research of BC

PHDA 04 Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection

"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."
Samuel Essien, PhD Candidate, School of Public Health, University of Saskatchewan

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"I would recommend the program to working professionals, researchers, and graduate students.

The program had many strengths including: excellent, experienced instructors for each of the courses; use of fellow students as peers to give feedback on assignments (this was a particular strength of the PHDA06 course in Health Evaluation and Program Monitoring); and discussion forums that promoted exchange of information amongst students using real life examples"  > read full testimonial
Johnathan Lambo, Public Health Physician and Medical Epidemiologist

PHDA 05 Longitudinal Analysis and Multi-level Modeling of Population Health Data

"The courses I found to be of greatest benefit to me and my work were PHDA 01 (Working with Administrative Data) and PHDA 05 (Longitudinal Analysis and Multi-level Modeling of Population Health Data). These courses provided practical skills that I find I apply regularly to my job, and made me much more comfortable with using data analytic programs like SAS."
Sarah Costa, Health Economist, Canadian Centre for Applied Research in Cancer Control, BC Cancer Agency

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"I enjoyed all the courses. In particular, I found the GIS course very interesting and fun as I had never worked in this subject area before. I also benefitted from learning new SAS skills in other PHDA courses. Prior to taking the program, I had no knowledge of SAS.

The instructors were all very knowledgeable and experienced.  They really supported students through engaging conversations and encouragement for our work assignments. The PHDA courses catered to both beginner students as well as those with experience in the field. Instructors were always willing to provide extra resources and support – the courses were never boring!" > read full testimonial
Navdeep Sandhu, Research Assistant, Faculty of Health Sciences, Simon Fraser University

PHDA 01 Working with Administrative Data

"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." > read full testimonial
Adele Balram, Data Analyst, New Brunswick Institute for Research and Data Training

PHDA - Overall program/course experience

"One of the greatest strengths of the program is the access to the Secure Research Training Lab. It holds practical, well written, easy to follow lab activities in data analytics and a very used de-identified BC Heath Dataset as well as other health related training datasets for applied learning. This provided an excellent learning environment for professional development training in data analytics." > read full testimonial
Nino Samson, Strategy Analyst, BC Ministry of Health

PHDA 05 Longitudinal Analysis and Multi-level Modeling of Population Health Data

"I plan to undertake some mapping of hotspots where illicit drug use is most  common. For my interests at this time, I found the longitudinal data analysis course (PHDA 05) and geocoding skills in (PHDA 03) were the most helpful.  This is because with increasing use of multiple drugs it is important to determine where outbreaks occur and be able to establish cohorts of people who use these substances and then follow over time determining predictors of change." > read full testimonial
Lucinda Burns, Associate Professor, Faculty of Medicine, University of New South Wales