"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."
My postdoctoral supervisor suggested it to me – my PhD work was qualitative, and I’m interested in doing more mixed-methods and quantitative research using administrative data so it seemed like a good fit. The fact that it was online and I could take the courses at my own pace was an additional motivator.
I developed a number of skills, most importantly in working with administrative data and statistical analysis. The evaluation course was probably the most useful as it is something I’d like to incorporate into my future research much more.
I am currently planning an evaluation of a health program that will include using administrative data, so hopefully it will give me plenty of opportunity to use the skills I’ve developed.
The flexibility of timing due to the entirely online nature of the program stood out to me. I could work on things when I had the time, which I think is a great feature for people who are generally working full time. I also liked the mix of discussion and individual assignments in the courses; getting to hear others’ opinions and experiences was very useful.
Yes, I would recommend this program to others, although I would definitely suggest only taking one course at a time. Even working only part time, taking two courses at once was a bit much.
"I found PHDA 03 (Population Health and Geographic Information Systems) very interesting as it provided applicable GIS uses for health services research. I plan on increasingly incorporating GIS analyses in my health services research in order to understand another dimension of care accessibility during the end-of-life phase. "
"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".
"It was really good for me to gain more experience working with large data sets and use a secure research environment to get used to the complexities of various kinds of datasets we come across daily. The spatial data and network analysis work, applied longitudinal analysis techniques and foundational SAS skills I learned really benefitted my research work. Now when I am faced with new problems, I feel better equipped and much more confident to handle them.
I have done some online courses before. I felt the courses in this program were well organized. The labs were very useful and very applied, instructors were always available to answer questions and the weekly or biweekly course modules provided structure but also some flexibility."
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
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