"I plan to undertake some mapping of hotspots where illicit drug use is most common. For my interests at this time, I found the longitudinal data analysis course (PHDA 05) and geocoding skills in (PHDA 03) were the most helpful. This is because with increasing use of multiple drugs it is important to determine where outbreaks occur and be able to establish cohorts of people who use these substances and then follow over time determining predictors of change."
I learned about the PHDA program through browsing on web and was motivated to get more training in population health data analysis while working full-time.
Although the course load was a bit heavy at times, I think I’ve learned a lot and developed hands-on experience in analyzing population health data using SAS and ArcGIS.
I have not yet had a chance to utilize all the knowledge and skills I’ve gained in my current work, but definitely have a better understanding of results that are analyzed using ArcGIS.
The strengths of this program include: good organization of coursework, exposure to variety of relevant topics, hands-on experience using several analytical software, excellent support and feedback by instructors, and a flexible schedule.
I would definitely recommend colleagues and others to take this program for further professional development.
My program experience has been great and thank you for all the support I received from instructors and staff members in the PHDA program.
"The courses that provided me the greatest benefit included the Population Health and Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection.
Using the GIS and SAS skills that I learned from the PHDA program, I was able to create a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) layer using GIS software, which showed peak greenness for the entire country over a ten-year period. Using this data and other administrative databases a team of researchers led by Dr. Dan Crouse and myself, conducted a research study that looked at how living by residential greenspace can impact longevity."
"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."
"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."
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