"I would recommend this program to others, especially those I work with. The courses are great for professional development if individuals want to acquire new skills or keep their current skills up to date."
PHDA testimonials
PHDA Overall program/course experience
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."
PHDA 02 Epidemiological Statistics
"Epidemiological Statistics was a great refresher for advanced statistics using sample data sets and applied examples. It was a very useful and informative course."
PHDA full testimonial
- How did you learn about the program and what motivated you to enroll?
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I got to know about the program through my former master’s thesis supervisor. My quest to broaden my knowledge in geographic information systems (GIS) and spatial epidemiology motivated me to enrol in the program.
- Tell us about your course experience. What skills did you develop and which courses provided the greatest benefit to you?
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I am really satisfied with the course 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. Courses which benefited me the most are PHDA 03-Population Health and Geographic Information System (GIS), PHDA 01-Working with Administration Data and PHDA-04-Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection.
- How have you been able to (or how do you plan to) apply your new skills in your work/research?
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I have not yet applied the acquired skills to my research, but the skills will be useful for my future research work.
- What do you think were the strengths of this program? Please provide examples.
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The program’s strength emerged from how the courses were offered with typical examples such as offering PHDA 03 before PHDA 04 and also 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.
- Would you recommend this program to others? If so, what recommendations/suggestions would you give those interested in applying to this program?
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Yes. I recommend this program to students, especially those with no prior knowledge in spatial epidemiology and GIS and are keen on knowing more about these areas.
- Any additional comments you would like to add?
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I have not regretted enrolling in this program, and have actually enhanced my skill set.
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."
University of British Columbia, 201-2206 East Mall, Vancouver BC V6T 1Z3
Health Data Research Network Canada (HDRN) member
International Population Data Linkage Network (IPDLN) member
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