Environmental & Occupational Epidemiology

Physical, chemical and (non-infectious) biological factors in the general environment and in the workplace contribute significantly to the global burden of disease. Examples of such environmental and occupational risk factors include outdoor air pollution, heat waves, pesticides and allergens and (non-)infectious agents. For other stressors such as electromagnetic fields uncertainty regarding their health effects remains. Environmental and occupational epidemiology has made major contributions to the assessment of the magnitude of the health risks from various environmental and occupational stressors. The evidence from the studies performed in environmental and occupational epidemiology is relevant for decision making regarding preventive action and ultimately protects public health.

Dr. U. (Ulrike) Gehring
Assoicate Professor in Environmental Epidemiology, Utrecht University
Quick overview
  • 6 weeks - 14 hrs / wk
  • Academic Certificate
  • 3.0 EC
  • Online
  • English
€1.545,-
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Enrollment closes 10/02/2025 51 days left to apply
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Course description

This advanced course will introduce you to the principles and important issues of environmental and occupational epidemiology.

The main methodological topics include study designs for the assessment of short-term effects (time series studies, panel studies and case crossover studies) and long-term effects of environmental and occupational exposures (ecological studies, different types of cohorts and case-control studies), spatial epidemiology, exposure assessment (using measurements and models), measurement error (types, impact and correction methods) and advanced data analyses (time series including shape of concentration response functions, case-cross-over and panel studies).

Research methods will be illustrated with examples on current and emerging topics in environmental and occupational epidemiology.

Learning objectives

By the end of the course, students will be able to:

  • Apply epidemiological designs frequently used in environmental & occupational
    epidemiology and less in other applications of (clinical) epidemiology;
  • Understand new designs for environmental & occupational exposure assessment;
  • Assess the impact of measurement error in exposure on effect estimates and use correction methods;
  • Understand causal effect estimation in environmental and occupational epidemiology;
  • Appreciate the role of environmental psychology in studying risk perception and behavioral choices in the context of environmental risks and exposure;
  • Perform specific epidemiological analyses used in the fields of environmental & occupational epidemiology.

Course topics

Besides introductions to the fundamental principles of exposure assessment and environmental epidemiology, the following main topics will be covered:

  • Short-term effect studies. We will introduce study designs that are used to assess the short-term effects of environmental & occupational exposures such as time-series studies, panel studies and case-crossover studies. We will discuss major challenges of such studies, e.g. adjustment for potential confounders, non-linear relationships
  • Spatial epidemiology & long-term effect studies. We will discuss principles of spatial epidemiology including applications in mapping and cluster detection. We will also compare the use of different study designs that are used to assess the long-term effects of environmental and occupational exposure and introduce you to exposure-time response relationships.
  • Measurement error. The impact of measurement error in exposure, health outcomes and confounders on effect estimates in epidemiological studies will be discussed using introductory and more advanced texts. Statistical methods for measurement correction methods will be illustrated.
  • Exposure assessment in epidemiology. We will introduce the use of geographic information systems, empirical and deterministic models to assess environmental exposures for large populations and explain the fundamentals of occupational exposure assessment.

Theory will be illustrated with examples on current and emerging topics.

Assessment

To successfully complete this course, you need to actively participate in the discussion forums and
complete all learning assignments, including:

  • Individual and group assignments;
  • A final assignment related to a recent research paper on an environmental or occupational health
    topic.

Requirements

The course has been designed as an advanced course. We assume that students have:

  • Completed a bachelor’s degree;
  • Good proficiency in English reading and writing;
  • Basic knowledge of epidemiology and statistics;
  • Experience with the statistical software R.

FAQ Environmental & Occupational Epidemiology

We offer discounts for participants from Low- and Lower-middle-income Countries. Utrecht University and UMC Utrecht employees and students are eligible for a 10% discount. Unfortunately, we don’t offer any scholarships.

No, there aren’t any set times you should be online as it is an asynchronous course. All the web lectures are already pre-recorded. However there will be deadlines each week (during the week as well on weekends). Each week consists of approximately 14 study hours. To experience maximum interaction, we advise you to log in several times per week. Furthermore, you should be aware that the teacher and the e-moderator are off on weekends.

No, this is not possible because the course contains group assignments, so you can’t work ahead. Each week, a new learning unit will be made available. This means that not all the learning units are open simultaneously. Additionally, you can’t catch up on the course because there are deadlines to meet every week.

If you have ordered a course and paid immediately, you will receive an email with your login details. Sometimes, this email ends up in your spam folder. If you already have an existing account, simply log in to our learning environment. The course you just ordered will be visible in your account. If you paid by invoice, you will receive your login credentials as soon as the invoice is paid. If the course is starting soon and you haven’t received your login details, please reach out to us at info@elevatehealth.eu to inquire about the payment status.

When you have completed all the assignments or have finished the exam with a good grade, you will receive an official certificate from Utrecht University. All academic certificates issued by Utrecht University will be sent by mail to the address registered in your account. Since these certificates are official documents, they cannot be sent by email.

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