Revised: September 29, 2010

School of Public Health

University of California, Berkeley

First Year DrPH Seminar

PB HLTH 293-01, Fall, 2010

(CC# 76349, section 01)

Wednesday, 2:00 – 5:00, 714C University Hall (4 units)  

 

COURSE FACULTY

 

Norman A. Constantine, PhD

237 University Hall

nconstantine@berkeley.edu

office hours by appointment

 

Megan Dunbar, DrPH

237 University Hall

mdunbar@pgaf.org 

office hours by appointment

 

Syllabus with download links for readings at:   http://crahd.phi.org/PH293-01Syllabus.htm

 

COURSE DESCRIPTION

 

The first year DrPH seminar is designed to provide incoming DrPH students with a sophisticated overview of the foundations of scientific inquiry, public health research, and public health leadership. Most sessions involve full group and small group discussions of readings, often including critiques of published articles, or presentation and discussion of students’ evolving dissertation research plans. Several skill building workshops are also provided by outside experts on topics such as UCB library use and human subjects protection.  The seminar is expected to help build and support early thinking for each student in substantive and methodological areas of interest for the dissertation, and to provide the opportunity to begin the systematic development of dissertation ideas and strategies. 

 

This fall semester addresses scientific foundations for research, critical appraisal of evidence, research methods application issues, and issues in global health research. It also focuses on practical skills such as developing research questions, conducting a literature review, and library research methods and supports. Specific topics include evidence and argument, critical thinking, scientific reasoning, theoretical frameworks, and issues in causal inference. Also included will be a review of common application issues in qualitative and mixed methods research (with quantitative research methods primarily covered in the spring semester). These methods sessions are not intended to substitute for a more comprehensive class in one or more of the methods covered, but rather to provide an overview of the potential strengths and limitations of each method, and a discussion of key issues in appropriate application and interpretation. A common framework focused on plausible rival hypotheses and threats to validity will help guide our review of each topic. The goals are to help students (1) develop skills for critically appraising, interpreting, and applying results of public health research, and (2) develop understanding of the potential and challenges of different types of research methods for possible use in addressing their dissertation research questions.

 

The spring semester will continue this approach, focusing on public health leadership skill building, public health and research ethics, and quantitative research methods including survey research, measurement development, experimental and quasi-experimental designs, and theory-based data analysis. Further attention will be directed toward issues in causal inference and threats to validity. Students will continue to develop, present, and discuss potential dissertation topics and strategies.

COMPETENCIES AND OBJECTIVES (Fall Semester)

 

Participation in the fall semester of this course will provide an opportunity to fully or partially master the following competencies and objectives:

 

1.     Critically appraise public health arguments, claims, and evidence.

2.     Understand and apply the principles of rigorous scientific inquiry and scientific reasoning.

3.     Describe and illustrate the relationship between research questions and research methods.

4.     Explain the importance and use of theoretical foundations for scientific research.

5.     Develop, explain, and justify a sound theoretical framework for the student’s own research.

6.     Understand and apply the concepts of plausible rival hypotheses, validity evidence, and validity threats to the design and appraisal of both quantitative and qualitative research. 

7.     Describe and critique commonly applied arguments and criteria for causal inferences in research

8.     Explain the justifications for and approaches to mixed methods research

9.     Systematically critique and defend the student’s own and others’ research, including its theoretical foundation, questions, methods, claims, and conclusions.

10.  Develop library research and literature review tools and skills necessary for successful dissertation completion.

COURSE ASSIGNMENTS AND GRADING (Fall Semester)

1.      Completing assigned readings in advance of each session, and participating actively and constructively in both small and large group discussions. Each week students should demonstrate good familiarity with and critical thinking about the key concepts and issues covered in the readings, and articulate appropriate questions and insights to help enhance understanding. For some sessions, brief notes, outlines,  or written reflections on reading assignments and study questions will be requested on the study questions advance handouts (25%)

 

2.      Four formal written assignments (FWAs), effectively employing concepts and strategies from the class readings and discussions. Professional level structural organization and writing clarity is expected:

·        FWA-1 due September 29. An opposing reply to a student-selected published editorial related to a public health topic. (1-2 pages, 15%)

·        FWA-2 due October 20. A preliminary literature review matrix (Garrand, chapter 5) for a potential dissertation topic. (2-3 pages, 15%)

·        FWA-3 due November 10. A review of an assigned published qualitative research article as if you were a journal reviewer, reviewing this article for publication. (2-3 pages, 15%)

·        FWA-4 due December 1. A review of an assigned published mixed methods research article as if you were a journal reviewer, reviewing this article for publication. (2-3 pages, 15%)

 

·        A preliminary 2-3 page written dissertation proposal summary and 10 minute slide-free presentation to the class. (15%)

COURSE SCHEDULE (Fall Semester)

Session Number

Date

Topic

(written assignments due)

1

Sep 1

Course overview

Making the most of the DrPH degree program

Introduction to evidence and inquiry

Research questions

2

Sep 8

Evidence and argument

Foundations of research

3

Sep 15

(md out)

Principles of scientific inquiry

Role of theory in scientific research

4

Sep 22

(nc out)

Fundamentals of a literature review

Introduction to the UCB libraries (Michael Sholinbeck, 4:00 – 5:00)

5

Sep 29

Confirmation bias and motivated reasoning

(FWA-1 editorial reply due)

6

Oct 6

(nc out)

Methods of literature review

PubMed basics (Debbie Jan, 3:30 – 5:00)

7

Oct 13

(md out)

Critical appraisal of evidence

Plausible rival hypotheses and validity threats

8

Oct 20

(nc out)

EndNote (Karen Andrews, 2:00 – 3:30)

Application of literature review methods

(FWA-2  preliminary lit review matrix due)

9

Oct 27

Issues in causal inference

10

Nov 3

(nc out)

Qualitative research: Introduction to design and analysis

11

Nov 10

(md out)

Issues in qualitative research: How might you be wrong?

(FWA-3 qualitative article critique due)

12

Nov 17

Introduction to global health

(presentations of 2-page preliminary proposal summaries: 4 students)

--

Nov 24

Pre-holiday, no class

13

Dec 1

Critical multiplism and mixed methods research

(presentations of 2-page preliminary proposal summaries: 3 students)

(FWA-4 mixed methods article critique due)

14

Dec 8

Global health research

(presentations of 2-page preliminary proposal summaries: 3 students)

Course evaluations

 

READINGS (Fall semester)

 

Required  Texts

 

·       Browne M. N. & Keeley, S. M. (2006/2009). Asking the right questions: A guide to critical thinking. (8th/9th edition). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall.

 

·       Garrard, J. (2010) Health sciences literature review made easy: The matrix method. (3rd edition). Sudbury, MA: Jones & Bartlett Publishers

 

·       Maxwell, J.A. (2005). Qualitative research design: An interactive approach (2nd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

 

·       Trochim, W. M. & Donnelly, J. P. (2006). The research methods knowledge base. (3rd edition). Cincinnati, OH: Atomic Dog Publishing. (2nd edition okay, or web version. In the web version, there will be many sections and subsections to click on for each chapter: http://www.socialresearchmethods.net/kb/contents.php )

 

 

Assigned Readings (subject to change)

 

September 1, 2010 (Introduction to evidence and inquiry; Research questions)

 

1.     Jessor, R. (2005). Remarks on the changing nature of inquiry.  Journal of Adolescent Health, 37, 9-10. (editorial) View

2.     Begley, S. (2009). When studies collide: Rethinking the evidence on BPA. Newsweek. June 29, 2009.  View

3.     Singer, N. (2009). Medical papers by ghostwriters pushed therapy. New York Times, August 5, 2009. View

4.     Shavelson, R. & Towne, L. (2003). What drives scientific research in education? Questions, not methods, should drive the enterprise. Association for Psychological Science Observer, 17(4). View

5.     Cummings, S.R., Browner, W.S., & Hulley, S.B. (2001). Conceiving the research question. In Designing clinical research. (chapter 2). View

 

September 8, 2010  (Evidence and argument; Foundations of research)

 

1.     Browne & Keeley (2006). Chapters 1-3. (Asking the right questions, Issues and conclusions, Reasons). –or- (2010). Chapters 1-4. (Asking the right questions, Critical thinking as a social activity, Issues and conclusions, Reasons).

2.     Trochim  & Donnelly (2006). Chapter 1.  (Foundations, 3rd edition pp. 4-30, or 2nd edition pp. 3-37, or on the web: Link.)

 

Target articles

1.     Stettin, B. (2010, August 17). On mental illness: Correcting the record on Laura's Law. San Francisco Chronicle. View

2.     Krauthammer, C. (2009, August 14). The great 'prevention' myth. Washington Post. View

3.     Glasgow, R. et al. (2000). A brief smoking cessation intervention for women in low-income Planned Parenthood clinics. American Journal of Public Health. 90 (5): 786-789 View

 

September 15, 2010 (Principles of scientific inquiry; Role of theory in scientific research)

 

1.     Shavelson, R. & Towne, L. (Eds.) (2002). Guiding principles for scientific inquiry. In Scientific research in education. National Research Council Committee on Scientific Principles for Education Research, Washington, DC: National Academy Press. (Chapter 3). View

2.     Phillips, D.C. (2000). Preface, and Chapter 6 (New philosophy of science, pp.101-115). View

3.     Trochim & Donnelly (2006). Chapter 3.  (Theory of Measurement, 3rd edition pp. 56-97, or 2nd edition pp. 63-105, or on the web: Link.)

4.     Green, J. (2000). The role of theory in evidence-based health promotion practice. [editorial]. Health Education Research, 15(2), 125-129.  View

 

Target article (from previous session)

1.     Glasgow, R. et al. (2000). A brief smoking cessation intervention for women in low-income Planned Parenthood clinics. American Journal of Public Health. 90 (5): 786-789 View

Recommended

·       Hughes, J. N. (2000). The essential role of theory in the science of treating children: Beyond empirically supported treatments. Journal of School Psychology, 38, 301–330. View

·       Kazdin, A.E. (2000). Understanding change: From description to explanation in child and adolescent psychotherapy research. Journal of School Psychology, 38, 337-347. View

·       Campbell, D. T. (1984) Can we be scientific in applied social science? In R. F. Conner and others (eds.), Evaluation Studies Review Annual. Vol. 9. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage. View

·       Okasha, S. (2002). Philosophy of science: A very short introduction. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

                                        

September 22, 2010 (Fundamentals of literature review; Introduction to the UCB libraries)

 

1.     Garrard, J. (2010). Chapters 1-2.

2.     Mofenson, L.M. ( 2010). Prevention in neglected subpopulations: prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection. Clin Infect Dis., 50 Suppl 3:S130-48. View

 

Recommended

·       Volmink J, Siegfried N, van der Merwe L, Brocklehurst P. (2007). Antiretrovirals for reducing the risk of mother-to-child transmission of HIV infection. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 1. Art. No.: CD003510. View

 

September 29, 2010 (Confirmation bias and motivated reasoning)

 

1.   Browne & Keeley (2006). Chapters 4-7. (Ambiguity, Value assumptions, Descriptive assumptions, Reasoning fallacies) -or- (2010). Chapters 5-7. (Ambiguity, Value and descriptive assumptions, Reasoning fallacies).

2.   Horton, R. (1998). The grammar of interpretive medicine. Canadian Medical Association Journal, 159, 245-249. View

3.   Kunda, Z. (1990). The case for motivated reasoning. Psychological Bulletin, 108, 480-498. View

 

Target article

1.     VanDamme et al. (1998). Effects of a refugee-assistance programme on host population in Guinea as measured by obstetric interventions. Lancet, 351: 1609–13 View

 

Recommended

·       Phillips, D.C. (2000). Chapter 8 (Popperian rules for research design). View

·       Ditto, P. H., & Lopez, D. F. (1992). Motivated skepticism: Use of differential decision criteria for preferred and nonpreferred conclusions. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 63(4), 568-584. View

 

October 6, 2010 (Methods of literature review; PubMed basics)

 

1.     Garrard, J. (2010). Chapters 3-6.

2.     Please review the article on motivated reasoning from last week’s session (Kunda,1990. View)

3.     Stephenson, J.M.  (1998). Systematic review of hormonal contraception and risk of HIV transmission: when to resist meta-analysis. AIDS, 12:545–553

 

October 13, 2009 (Critical appraisal of evidence; Plausible rival hypotheses and validity threats)

 

1.     Browne & Keeley (2006 or 2010). Chapters 8 - 10. (8. How good is the evidence: Intuition, personal experience, testimonials, and appeals to authority; 9. How good is the evidence: Observations, research studies, case examples, and analogies, and 10. Rival causes). 

2.     Constantine, N. A & Braverman, M. T. (2004). Appraising evidence on program effectiveness. In M. T. Braverman, N. A. Constantine, and J. K. Slater (Eds.), Foundations and evaluation: Contexts and practices for effective philanthropy. (Chapter 12). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. View

3.     Gorman, D.M. (2003). Prevention programs and scientific nonsense. Policy Review, 117. View

4.     Ioannidis, J. P. A. (2005). Why most published research findings are false. PLoS Medicine, 2, 696-701. View

Recommended

·       Campbell (1989) in Yin (2003). Plausible rival hypotheses: Core of the scientific method. View

·       Gruner, A. et al. (2007). The devil is in the details: Examining the evidence for "proven" school-based drug prevention programs. Evaluation Review, 31, 43-74. View

·       Haack, S. (2003). Defending science -- Within reason: Between scientism and cynicism. New York: Prometheus.  Preface, and Chapter 3 (Clues to the puzzle of scientific evidence: A more so  story). View 

 

October 20, 2010 (EndNote; Application of literature review methods)

 

·       Garrard, J. (2010). Chapters 7-9.

·       Example literature review 3 (TBD)

 

October 27, 2010 (Issues in causal inference)

 

1.     Browne & Keeley (2006 or 2010). Chapters 11 through 14 (Statistics; Omitted information; Possible reasonable conclusions, and either Practice and review (2006) or Overcoming obstacles (2010)). 

2.     Rutter, M. (2003). Poverty and mental health: Natural experiments and social causation. (Editorial). Journal of the American Medical Association, 290, 2063-2064. View

3.     Freedman, D.A. (2007). Oasis or mirage? (pp. 1-5). View

4.     Hill, A. B. (1965). The environment and disease: association or causation? Proceedings of the Royal Society of Medicine, 58, 295-300. View 

5.     Joint Report of the Study Group on Smoking and Health (1957). Smoking and health. Science, 125, 1129-1133.  View

6.     Smith, G.C.S. & J.P. & Pell, J.P. (2003). Parachute use to prevent death and major trauma related to gravitational challenge: systematic review of randomised controlled trials. BMJ, 27, 1459-1461. View

 

Recommended

·       Cornfield, J. (1959) Smoking and lung cancer: recent evidence and a discussion of some questions. Journal of the National Cancer Institute, 22, 173-203. View (large scanned pdf file, might take three or more minutes to download).

·       Davey Smith, G. & Ebrahim, S. (2001). Epidemiology -- Is it time to call it a day? International Journal of Epidemiology, 30, 1-11View

·       Freedman, D.A. (2008/2010). On types of scientific inquiry: The role of qualitative reasoning. View 

 

November 3, 2010 (Introduction to qualitative research design and analysis)

 

·       Maxwell (2005). Chapters 1-5.

·       Patton, M. Q. (2002). Qualitative research and evaluation methods. (3rd edition). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (types of purposeful sampling: pp. 230-246). View (large scanned file)

 

November 10, 2010 (Issues in qualitative research: How might you be wrong?)

 

1.     Phillips, D.C. (2000). Qualitative research and its warrant. In: The expanded social scientist’s bestiary: a guide to fabled threats to, and defenses of, naturalistic social science. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. View

2.     Maxwell (2005). Chapter 6, 7, and appendix.

3.     Malterud, K. (2001). The art and science of clinical knowledge: Evidence beyond measures and numbers/Qualitative research: Standards, challenges, and guidelines. The Lancet, 358, 397-400, 483-488. View

4.     Barbour, R.S. (2001). Checklists for improving rigor in qualitative research: Is the tail wagging the dog? BMJ, 322, 1115-1117. View

 

Target articles for critique

5.     Carnes, D. et al. (2009). Influences on older people’s decision making regarding choice of topical or oral NSAIDs for knee pain: Qualitative study. BMJ, online first. View

6.     Barry, C.A. et al. (2000). Patient’s unvoiced agendas in general practice consultations: Qualitative study.  BMJ, 320, 1246-1250. View

 

November 17, 2010 (Introduction to global public health: Global policy in transition)

View all four

1.     Gostin, L.O. & Mok, E.A. (2010).  The President's Global Health Initiative: Commentary. JAMA. 304(7):789-790.

2.     McNeil, D.G.  (2010, May 9). At Front Lines, AIDS War is Falling Apart.  New York Times. A3

3.     Ooms, G. et al. (2008). The 'diagonal' approach to Global Fund financing: a cure for the broader malaise of health systems? Globalization and Health v 4(6): 1-7. doi:10.1186/1744-8603-4-6

4.     Bongaarts., J; Over, M.  (2010). Global HIV/AIDS Policy in Transition. Science. 328: 1359-1360

 

Recommended

·       Paruzzolo, S. et al.  (2010). Targeting Poverty and Gender Inequality to Improve Maternal Health: Executive Summary.  Women Deliver and ICRW. View

·       Implementation of the Global Health Initiative: Consultation document.  (2010) View 

 

December 1, 2010 (Critical multiplism and mixed methods research)

 

Brief Overviews

1.     One-page overview of deductive and inductive aspects of research, and how they fit together in all types of research. Link

2.     Greene and colleagues’ purposes and analytic strategies View

 

Required Readings

1.     Reichardt, C. S. & Rallis, S. F. (1994). The relationship between the qualitative and quantitative research traditions; Qualitative and quantitative inquiries are not incompatible. New Directions for Program Evaluation, 61, 5-11, 85-91.  View

2.     Letourneau, N. & Allen, M. (1999). Post-positivistic critical multiplism: a beginning dialogue. Journal of Advanced Nursing, 30, 623-630. View  

3.   Shadish, W. R. (1995). Philosophy of science and the quantitative-qualitative debates - 13 common errors. Evaluation and Program Planning,18(1), 63-75. View

4.   Sosulski, M. R. & Lawrence, C. (2008).Mixing methods for full strength results: Two welfare studies. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 2, 121-148. View

 

Recommended

·       Shadish W. R. (1993) Critical multiplism: a research strategy and its attendant tactics. New Directions for Program Evaluation, 60,13-57. View

·       Creswell, J. W. & Plano Clark, V. L. (2007). Designing and conducting mixed methods research. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. (Very good overview text, except for the superficial and confused discussion of worldviews/paradigms, which should be ignored.)

·       (We do not recommend Tashakkori and Teddlie’s books on this topic.)

 

December 8, 2010 (Global Health Research: Defining priorities and understanding challenges)

View all three

1.     Institute of Medicine’s Committee on the US Commitment to Global Health. (2009).  The US Commitment to Global Health: Recommendations for the New Administration.  (pages 21-29).

2.     Mills, E.J.; & Singh, S. (2007). Health, Human Rights and the conduct of clinical research within oppressed populations. Globalization and Health 2007, 3:1 doi:10.1186/1744-8603-3-10

3.     Mystakidou, K. et al.  (2009).   Ethical and practical challenges in implementing informed consent in HIV/AIDS clinical trials in developing or resource-limited countries Journal of Social Aspects of HIV/AIDS. V. 6(2). 46-57