Welcome to this exciting course related to scientific publication. This course aims at providing research skills in developing a scientific research paper and at a later stage a policy brief. At the end of the course, you will be able to improve your skills in writing abstract and main components of a scientific research paper. You will be able to review a research paper and describe different components and flow of each section of a scientific paper. At a later stage, you will be introduced to how to develop a policy brief from your research findings for an evidence-based policy decision.
This course is intended for all students registered for Master programs. The course covers keys components of research methods from the literature review to the full protocol development. Selected topics covered in lectures include literature search techniques, research design, sample size calculation, sampling strategies, and questionnaires design as well as the research protocol development. The course will have both theoretical and practical aspects.
The course is aiming at providing the students enrolled in Epidemiology and MPH programs with a practical knowledge and skills related to qualitative and mixed research methods. The course will cover topics including proposal writing, field work, analysis and reporting as well as disemination of qualtitative and mixed research findings.
You are expected to participate to the entire course, including the scheduled group or individual course assignments and discussions using the designed forum. If necessary, do not hesitate to contact the course instructor for further information.
The course introduces the operations research methodologies most frequently used by international reproductive health programs, and prepares current/future program administrators and policymakers to play an active role in programmatic research. The course has a strong focus on the role, rights and responsibilities of program managers and policymakers in establishing research priorities and in setting parameters for the research design, including deciding the time and program resources available for the study, tolerable levels of obtrusiveness in program operations, the absolute magnitude of improvement required to change program procedures, and the degree of precision required of the results. Participants will use the methodological principles and managerial criteria taught in the course to critique the programmatic usefulness of actual reproductive health OR proposals and reports.
Operations Research (OR) is research that attempts to improve services delivery and is an integral and long-established part of public health practice. Managers of health programs are often required to collaborate with researchers whether in making facilities available for research, identifying problems requiring research, or judging the usefulness of the research findings. Often, managers are not prepared for their rights and responsibilities in the research process.
The study of factors under program managers’ control is what differentiates OR from other research. Managers can manipulate independent variables, and dependent variables are program outputs, client behavioural outcomes, or health impacts. OR is the problem defined and not limited to any specific methodology (e.g. surveys, experiments, models).
This course is designed to prepare master (Epidemiology, Field epidemiology and public health) students to their future role of investigators who will be involved in the design and/or conduct of research involving human subjects to understand their obligations to protect the rights and welfare of subjects in research. This course introduces the basic concepts, principles, and issues related to the protection of research participants. The course will discuss the principles of ethics in research, the development of contemporary research ethics, and give an overview of the responsibilities of ethics committees and of researchers when conducting a research. Lectures are complemented by practical sessions devoted to case studies, exercises, or critique of current examples of public health studies. This course covers a brief of what is supposed to be known, thus, students are expected to complete a very comprehensive online research ethics course, hosted by FHI 360.
I hope you will enjoy it
Albert Ndagijimana, MPH, PhD student