PHDA testimonials

"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!"

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"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".

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"Although I have experience in the area of Population Health, I had no formal training working with layered data sets. The Working with Administrative Data course was good as it included making a data dictionary and use of admin data. One of my ongoing projects at work involves assessing trends in surgery wait times for lung cancer patients. This work involved analysis of local data as a pilot project looking for trends in regional variations; I used techniques learned in PHDA 01 to facilitate this analysis. I am happy that I took PHDA 01 before PHDA 02 as I didn’t have strong SAS skills and PHDA 01 includes an introduction to SAS skills from the very beginning."

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"Strengths of the PHDA courses included hands-on application of concepts (through the labs), responsive and supportive instructors, and reading materials that helped with learning the concepts. For example, the final projects in PHDA 03 and PHDA 04 allowed us to develop a practical research question, clean and analyze the required datasets, produce maps and analyses, and interpret results, which would mirror a typical project in the workplace."

"I would definitely recommend this program to my colleagues or others who would like to develop analytical skills and knowledge in data analysis and the use of health data.

I benefited by having an access to various analytic tools and different types/sources of health administrative data. They included a good balance of practice and theory. I did not find these kinds of courses were available to me when I was at University. In addition, I had very practical hands-on practice using statistical analytic tools such as SAS or ArcGIS which are not freely available for public use."

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