PHDA testimonials

"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."

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"The Population Health and GIS (PHDA 03) course was the most interesting course I took. The labs were easy to follow and I enjoyed the final project."

"I took the Population Health and GIS (PHDA 03) course and loved it! The opportunity to work with GIS technology and expand my skill set in this area was invaluable. It also helped to visualize the outbreak work I had been doing previously, and increase my understanding of what happens in these scenarios.

I plan to focus my work more specifically on infectious diseases, and the GIS skills I learned will be invaluable for visualizing and understanding their impacts more concretely.

There is great support by both the instructor and the course administrators. All of my questions were answered promptly and thoroughly. The coursework was challenging, but manageable for students like me working full time. The assignments were also very engaging, and all had practical applications."

"Both the PHDA 03 and PHDA 04 courses have made me confident working in ArcGIS, and applying principles of GIS/mapping to population health data and working on spatial analyses. In particular, what has been most helpful about these courses is applying the background theory to surveillance and research questions and walking through the analysis from start to finish, including interpretation of results."

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"Allowing students to gain hands on experience remotely with software packages such as ArcMap, SAS, and Mplus while having the flexibility to work full time is invaluable. Also having the opportunity to use Population Data BC’s administrative data with these packages offered a type of learning experience that I could not have had anywhere else."

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