Data Interpretation for Public Health Professionals

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Institution: Northwest Public Health Training Center

Course Description: This course provides an introduction to public health data interpretation.  It provides a basic competency in reading and presenting data, as well as an understanding of the terms used to describe data and the subtleties associated with data.  Examples and intractive exercises offer opportunities to increase skills in presenting data to coworkers, community-based organizations, hospitals, public agencies, boards of health, and the general public.  

Topics include:

  •  Uses of rates and counts
  •  Prevalence
  •  Incidence
  •  Mortality
  •  Crude versus category-specific rates
  •  Confidence intervals and p-values
  •  Graphs and tables
  •  Sources of public health data

Prerequisites: None.

Target Audience: Public health nurses, sanitarians, frontline public health workers, health educators

Resource Format: Online course

Time Requirement: 1.5 hours

More Information: More information is available at http://www.nwcphp.org/data or by contacting the NWCPHP Training and Outreach Specialist at nwcphp@u.washington.edu or (206) 616-5957.