Course Description
Foundational training in describing, identifying, and locating data for use in the public and private health sectors. The teaching model uses real-world data, games, roleplaying, and data ethics simulations to develop health data literacy.
Athena Title
Data Literacy in Public Health
Grading System
A - F (Traditional)
Course Objectives
The successful student should be able to: • Define the types of primary and public-use data sources used in the health sciences • Recognize when statistics are presented to describe patterns in data • Locate key sources of public-use data including census and state health data sources • Summarize the characteristics of wide (cross-sectional) and long (longitudinal) datasets • Explain how health data are used in multiple health sectors and across disciplines, and the role of data in society • Assess sources of cognitive and structural bias in how data are used for influence • Discuss positive and negative system feedback from health interventions and policy administered at individual and structural levels • Identify historical and present threats in the workforce that hamper public health practice or policy innovations • Illustrate the societal importance of health data to lay audiences • Recognize ethical and unethical uses of data
Topical Outline
• What is data and what are statistics? • What are the components of a dataset? • Differentiating between quality, bad, and imperfect data • Role of health data in society • Historical uses of qualitative and quantitative data • Data tools and descriptive analysis with real-world data • Data ethics • Cognitive and structural bias in the use of health data • Individual, institutional, societal, and cultural barriers in data-driven health influence • Roleplay institutional roles in case study competitions and simulations
Syllabus