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Vancouver (pronounced /væn.ˈkuːvər/) is a coastal city located in the Lower Mainland of British Columbia, Canada.

SPPH 567:
Quantitative Methods for the Assessment & Analysis of Exposure Data

Class listserv

Course Outline

Class Time Fridays, 09:00 - 12:00, Term 2
Location Room 143, SPPH Building, 2206 East Mall
Instructors Sarah Henderson, BCCDC, 604-910-9144  Contact by email
Teaching Assistant Angela Yao Contact by email
Objectives The main goals of this course are to teach you:
  • How to select and conduct analyses of occupational or environmental exposure data
  • to be comfortable using statistical software and learning new techniques with the software on your own.
  • How to design appropriate measurement strategies for various purposes, including monitoring for compliance, epidemiology, and determinants of exposure.
The course will use real exposure data sets and challenge you to think for yourself about how to design and conduct both sampling campaigns and analyses of the resulting data. Other objectives for this course are to teach you how to effectively give and receive critical appraisal of your work as you develop your major projects, and to develop your ability to work in teams.
Course Format Subject areas will be introduced with readings from the text or the scientific literature and short lectures. Classes will include discussions of focused questions about the readings and analyses you did that week, and will also include consideration of the issues you are dealing with for your term papers.
Software For this course we will be supporting the Deducer graphical interface for R. Installation is free, and will be covered in the first week of class. We can also support you if you want to code in R. You are welcome to use other statistical packages, but we cannot promise to be able to help you with them.
Required Texts
  • Norman GR and Streiner DL. PDQ Statistics, 3rd edition. Toronto: BC Decker, 2003
Evaluation Evaluation for grading purposes will be based on:
  1. Exposure distributions and limit of detection assignment (15%)
  2. Exploratory analysis of association between a binary and a continuous variable (5%)
  3. Exploratory analysis of association between a categorical and a continuous variable (5%)
  4. Midterm exam (20%)
  5. Mock academic manuscript on a multiple regression analysis (25%)
  6. Sampling strategy group project (25%) and presentation (5%)
The grade will reflect your:
  • Understanding of the course material.
  • Ability to consider and critically evaluate ideas presented.
  • Development of effective solutions to problems.
  • Both competence and innovation in data analysis and sampling strategy design.
The final average mark for the class will be in the A- range, because that is the typical entering undergraduate average of students in the class.
  • A+ (≥ 90%) is only rarely given (i.e., most years, it is not achieved by any student); it requires completion of and excellence in all core elements, evidence of critical thinking and innovation above and beyond expectations, and consistent attention to detail.
  • B+ (≥ 76%) or higher is evidence of graduate level work; it requires completion of and competence in all core elements, and evidence of critical thinking.

a place of mind, The University of British Columbia

School of Population and Public Health
2206 East Mall,
Vancouver, BC, V6T 1Z3, Canada
Tel: 604 822 2772

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