"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 learned about the program through emails from PopDataBC. I have been following PopDataBC since the organization was introduced to me during my MPH degree at UBC. I was motivated to enroll in the PHDA courses that I chose, because I was not offered the opportunity to take such courses during my MPH.
"The labs and the access to the SRTL were the biggest strengths of these courses. The SRTL had all the software, and all the data, and was really easy to access, and was well maintained and organized. The labs were applied, and had very tangible learning outcomes associated with them. They were practical in purpose, and effective in implementation via the SRLT. The labs were very smooth and impactful."
"I developed an understanding of not only how descriptive statistics can be geographically interpreted, but also how inferential statistics can be geographically interpreted. It taught me how to begin thinking spatially in-terms of patterns of health outcomes – neighbourhood make up, neighbourhood location, infrastructure, environmental concerns, etc."
My MSc supervisor recommended them based on the learning goals I had for my Master’s degree. UBC doesn’t offer anything like it, so we needed to look for partner institutions.
Methodological complexity may be a barrier to developing tools for multimorbidity risk prediction. Prognostic prediction models estimate patients’ risk of disease incidence, typically for a single disease independent of other chronic diseases incidence.
Data access has been granted for a study to investigate whether psychiatric genetic counseling influences recipients’ mental health, specifically whether it impacts the frequency and duration of psychiatric-related hospitalizations.
Data access has been approved for a study which aims to provide evidence-based recommendations for the optimal obstetric management of overweight and obese women.
Regression is used to examine the relationship between one or more explanatory (independent) variables and an outcome (dependent) variable. Ordinary least squares regression looks at the effect of explanatory variables on the average value of the outcome.
Do you work in the health or social science field and want to improve your data analysis skills?
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
Follow us on Bluesky and check out our YouTube Channel. 
Copyright 2025 | All rights reserved