PHDA testimonials

If you would like to specify which course(s) you would like to see testimonials for, you may do so by selecting the course(s) from the list below and hitting the APPLY filter button. You may select more than one course. Otherwise, the testimonials are listed below, in random order.

PHDA 04 Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection

"The GIS courses, PHDA 03 Population Health and GIS and PHDA 04 Spatial Epidemiology and Outbreak Detection provided the greatest benefits. They were excellent and introduced brand new skills for me. Prior to taking these courses I had some brief exposure to GIS within my Master’s program and through the free online PopData courses. The PHDA 03 and PHDA 04 course labs were very detailed and instructional, offering good balance between theory and practice. The courses generally had enough materials I could take away to continue working independently."

PHDA Overall program/course experience

"I feel this is a very unique program that combines the use of data analytics, statistical software and focused learning objectives related to the field of health. I also appreciated the fact that it was a fully online program with well-organized lectures, readings and remotely accessed lab work in health data analytics.

Overall the program was very helpful to my knowledge and skill development in the field of healthcare analytics. The program exceeded my expectations particularly because of the remotely accessed data analytic lab work that was more challenging than I anticipated. This work was very practical and very much oriented to real life case examples. The calibre of students in my courses was also very high as most were working professionals who brought valuable experience and knowledge to the discussion forums and project work."

PHDA full testimonial

How did you learn about the program and what motivated you to enroll?: I was in Canada and the program seemed a perfect fit to my interests.
Tell us about your course experience. What skills did you develop and which courses provided the greatest benefit to you?: I thoroughly enjoyed the courses, although sometimes I had trouble keeping up. Having said that, I found the lecturers very sympathetic to my needs. It was great to develop more understanding of the analysis of administrative datasets and in particular learning how to use geocoded data.
How have you been able to (or how do you plan to) apply your new skills in your work/research?: I will use my skills to undertake some more specific analysis using linked data. In particular, I plan to undertake some mapping of hotspots where illicit drug use is most common. For my interests at this time I found longitudinal data analysis and geocoding 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.
What do you think were the strengths of this program? Please provide examples.: The flexibility of the modules was very good and I appreciated learning from other students when there was something I couldn’t solve. For example when I couldn’t run a particular program, I could easily get assistance with this. Having access to previous assignments on the same topics made things much easier as well.
Would you recommend this program to others? If so, what recommendations/suggestions would you give those interested in applying to this program?: Yes, I would recommend this program and regularly circulate information about the courses as updates come to me.
Any additional comments you would like to add?: It was a really great experience and I learnt a great many new things so thank you!

PHDA 03 Population Health and Geographical Information Systems

"The PHDA 03 Population and GIS course provided me with a skill set that I would have had difficulty learning on my own. I was able to apply training from this course and the Epidemiological Statistics course (PHDA 02) to some of my current work that is assessing how we can improve quality of life related follow-up for British Columbian cancer patients after they have received their treatment. We were interested in seeing how follow-up for British Columbian patients differs with different levels of access to resources based on their geographical location. The analysis would have been much more difficult without the skills that I had learned in these two courses."

> read full testimonial

PHDA 03 Population Health and Geographical Information Systems

"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."

> read full testimonial

Search

PHDA testimonials

Sign up for e-news and keep up to date with what's new at PopData, including the latest on data access, data available and upcoming events.