Lifestyle Epidemiology (WR86)
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), comprising mainly of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), cancers and diabetes, are the leading causes of death globally. To a large extent, NCDs are caused by lifestyle factors including unhealthy dietary intake, lack of physical activity and sedentary behaviours. Appropriate measures and methods are required to study relations of such lifestyle behaviours and NCDs. This includes the use of valid tools and methods to measure dietary intake and physical activity, and suitable study designs and analytical techniques to analyse the data.
Course details
| Date: |
16, 17, 18 February 2022
|
Tuition fee: |
€995 |
|
| City: | Amsterdam | Course coordinator: | M.G.M. (Gabi) Matias de Pinho, PhD | |
| Language: | English | Learning method: | Lectures and practica | |
| Examination: | Written examination (facultative) | Examination dates: | See page Exams | |
| Number of EC: | 2 | Details: | ||
| Date | Tuition fee: | |
|---|---|---|
|
16, 17, 18 February 2022
|
€995 |
|
| City: | Amsterdam | |
| Course coordinator: | M.G.M. (Gabi) Matias de Pinho, PhD | |
| Language: | English | |
| Learning method: | Lectures and practica | |
| Examination: | Written examination (facultative) | |
| Examination dates: | See page Exams | |
| Number of EC: | 2 | |
| Details: | ||
About the course
This three-day course focuses especially on the lifestyle factors: diet, physical activity and sedentary behaviours.Course days will consist of plenary, interactive lectures, and workgroups focused on data processing and interpretation in alternation.
Day 1: Introduction, definitions, epidemiology of nutrition, physical activity and sedentary behaviours. measurement tools for dietary intake and physical activity part I (including gaining hands-on experience with collecting data)
Day 2: Measurement tools part II, data handling, statistical analysis part I
Day 3: Statistical analysis part II, determinants of lifestyle behaviours, discussion, assessment instructions.
If a course is [Full], you can still register, but you will be placed on a waiting list. We will contact you as soon as a place becomes available. At that time you can still decide whether you want to participate in the course.
More information
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), comprising mainly of cardiovascular diseases (CVD), cancers and diabetes, are the leading causes of death globally. To a large extent, NCDs are caused by lifestyle factors including unhealthy dietary intake, lack of physical activity and sedentary behaviours. Appropriate measures and methods are required to study relations of such lifestyle behaviours and NCDs. This includes the use of valid tools and methods to measure dietary intake and physical activity, and suitable study designs and analytical techniques to analyse the data.
The primary aim of the course is to translate up-to-date knowledge and skills on the measurement and epidemiology of dietary behaviours, physical activity and sedentary behaviours. This includes definitions, tools and methods to assess and handle data, conceptual frameworks and epidemiology of these lifestyle behaviours in relation to type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. Methods to assess dietary intake include questionnaires, biomarkers and digital food records and those for physical activity and sedentary behaviour include self-reported methods and objective measurement techniques. The relations between individual-level and environmental level determinants of lifestyle behaviours and health outcomes, such as CVD, obesity and diabetes will be discussed.
The course comprises of lectures, debate sessions and practicals. Lecturers will introduce the topics and provide the state of current knowledge. In practical afternoon sessions, students will work in small groups in a variety of forms, including group work, discussions and data interpretation and calculation.
The following topics will be covered:
- Patterns of nutrition, physical activity and sedentary behaviours, and their health consequences
- Population patterns (e.g., changes in physical activity and dietary behaviours over time, socio-economic patterning)
- Specific subpopulations (e.g., elderly, adolescents, migrant subgroups)
- Relations with health outcomes (obesity, type 2 diabetes, CVD, cancers, depression)
- Measurement of lifestyle behaviours in epidemiology
- Measurement tools (e.g., 24h recalls, biomarkers, accelerometry, doubly-labelled water)
- Clinimetric properties (e.g., validity and reliability of tools)
- Practical aspects (e.g., participant burden, time/financial investment)
- Handling of data (e.g., deciding on cut-points and other operationalisation steps from raw data to usable variables)
- Analysis of nutritional and physical activity data
- Study designs (e.g., experimental vs. observational)
- Principles and procedures of covariate adjustment (e.g., energy-adjustment for dietary intake)
- Statistical analysis (e.g., principal component analysis, confounding, moderation)
- Determinants of lifestyle behaviours
- Individual-and environmental level determinants of lifestyle behaviours – measurement and relations with dietary intake and physical activity (e.g. self-determination, fast-food environment, walkability)
- Social environment – measurement and relations with dietary intake and physical activity (e.g. neighbourhood social capital)
- Other types of environmental determinants (e.g., economic- and policy environments).
- The student understands how physical activity, sedentary behaviour and dietary intake influence NCDs such as cardiovascular diseases (CVD), cancers and diabetes.
- The student is aware of the different measurement tools to assess dietary behaviours and physical activity and is aware of advantages and disadvantages of each tool
- The student knows how to handle nutritional, physical activity and sedentary behaviour data collected in population studies
- The student knows how to analyse these data collected in population studies.
- The student is aware of the main types of individual-level and environmental-level determinants of dietary behaviours, physical activity and sedentary behaviours.
Target group
The course is meant for researchers working in academia, governmental institutions or industry who want to learn how the lifestyle factors ‘physical activity, sedentary behaviour and dietary intake’ influence non-communicable diseases such as cardiovascular diseases, cancers and type II diabetes. The course will not focus on other lifestyle factors such as tobacco smoking, alcohol consumption, substance abuse, sleep pattern, among others.
Course pre-requisites
Attendants are expected to have at least basic knowledge of epidemiological and statistical methods (i.e., study designs and analysis techniques).
Coursematerial
The course materials (lectures, assignments, feedback of the assignments etc) are available on Canvas, our digital learning environment. The documents will remain available on Canvas for at least one year.
To be able to do the computer practicals of this course you will need SPSS on your laptop; if you don’t have SPSS on your laptop, you can purchase SPSS through Surfspot at a very reasonable price. If you do not want to purchase SPSS, you can use the trial version that IBM makes available. See SPSS Software | IBM
Literature
The final assessment is facultative and will consist of a written exam. The costs are euro 150, – per examination or re-examination.
You can register for the exam via the website: Exams. Registration will close 3 weeks prior to the exam.
Please note that you need to pass the exam in order to receive credits (EC).
A certificate of participation will be granted to all students who have attended at least 80% of the classes. Only contact hours are stated on this certificate.
Only for Dutch medical specialists!
If you wish to be considered for accreditation points by the KNMG , you must sign the attendance list on the last day of the course.
To qualify for the accreditation points, you must have been present the whole course.
Faculty
J. (Jeroen) Lakerveld, PhD
Epidemiology and Data Science, Amsterdam UMC
