Health and Security (JPM998)

Topic outline

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  Introduction

  
  

  “We don't know when the next global health threat will come. We don't know where it will come from. We don't know what pathogen it will be, but we are 100 % certain that there will be a next one.“ Dr. Tom Frieden 

  
  

  “What worries me the most is that we are going to miss the next emerging disease, that we're suddenly going to find a SARS virus that moves from one part of the planet to another, wiping out people as it moves along.” Dr. Peter Daszak 

  
  

  • News Forum
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  Week 1: Introduction

  Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the relevance of the specialty in the broader context of the essential services of public health.
    
  • Recognize the diverse specialties.
    
  • Recognize how methods and state and district public health professionals work.
    
  • Historical examples in action (cholera outbreak 1854, smallpox, measles outbreak 2004).
    

  
  

  • John Snow – Broad Street Pump Outbreak Case Study URL
  • Measles Outbreak Information URL
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  Week 2: Toolkit (Human Tools, Data and Technology Tools)

  Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the significant roles of the human and technological elements of health practice.
    
  • Recognize the diverse professionals within and beyond public health that contribute to the success of surveillance and investigations.
    
  • Recognize key sources of data. 
    
  • Recognize ways in which professionals work with the media.
    
  • Understand how the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention serves as a resource for training, technical support, and surveillance and reporting of epidemiological data.
    

  
  

  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Smallpox Response Plan Guide URL
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  Week 3: Descriptive and Analytic Methods, Surveillance

  Learning Objectives:

  • Understand the distinction between descriptive and analytic methods, and their utility in surveillance and outbreak investigations.
    
  • Know how to interpret data for measures of association and common statistical tests.
    
  • Recognize the applications and limitations of current public health surveillance practices.
    
  • Be familiar with federal public health surveillance system.
    
  • Understand the reciprocal pathways of data exchange through country, state, and federal surveillance efforts.
    
  • Recognize the major components of surveillance data analysis.
    

  
  

  • El Allaki et al_A Population Health Surveillance Theory File
  • Zaccai_How to Assess Epidemiological Studies. File
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  Week 4: Public Health’s Role in Investigating Outbreaks

  Learning Objectives:

  • Be able to distinguish disaster, environmental, and forensic epidemiology specialties.
    
  • Appreciate how the context of law, media, business, and communities impacts practice.
    
  • Understand public health’s role in investigating natural outbreaks of disease and that unusual findings in an investigation. 
    
  • Understand the goals of public health and law enforcement officials and how these goals influence investigations.
    
  • Understand differences between a law enforcement investigation and a public health investigation.
    

  
  

  • Centers for Disease Control and Prevention URL
  • Jernigan et al. Investigation of Bioterrorism-Related Anthrax, United States, 2001: Epidemiologic Findings File
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  Week 5: Coronaviruses - Basic Fact Sheet

  Learning Objectives:

  • Understand three basic parameters in order to assess the magnitude of the risk posed by this novel coronavirus (Transmission Rate, Case Fatality rate, Determine whether asymptomatic transmission is possible)
  • Coronavirus update

  
  

  • Preliminary Estimation of the Basic Reproduction Number of Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China, from 2019 to 2020: A Data-Driven Analysis in the Early Phase of the Outbreak File
  • Novel Coronavirus 2019-nCoV: Early Estimation of Epidemiological Parameters and Epidemic Prediction URL
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  Further readings

  • Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) Situation Reports URL
  • Moghadami_Narrative Review of Influenza: A Seasonal and pandemic Disease File
  • Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in the U.S. - U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) URL