Infectious diseases have never respected national boundaries and are increasingly important challenges to health globally. Experience over recent years has shown time and time again that epidemics and pandemics affect people worldwide. How best to understand, manage and prevent them is the task of disease detectives (epidemiologists) and infection control experts. When disease outbreaks strike, epidemiologists are first on the scene.
Students and experts from all over the world have been trained in this field of applied epidemiology in the School of Health Sciences, University of Tampere for two decades. Every other year a special course entitled “Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Control” is held as part of the curriculum of the International Doctoral Programme in Epidemiology www.uta.fi/ippe. Collaborators include the National Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) and the European Programme for Intervention Epidemiology Training (EPIET) http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/epiet/Pages/HomeEpiet.aspx. Some three hundred participants from Finland and other countries have participated in the international Course over the years. In December 2015, the Course will be conducted in Tampere for the 10th time.
The Course covers the principles of infectious disease and field epidemiology, also known as “shoeleather” epidemiology because the detective work wears out the soles of one’s shoes. The teaching combines lectures with theoretical background information, practical examples and authentic case studies where participants get hands on experience in tracking epidemics, identifying causes of disease outbreaks, recommending prevention and control measures, and implementing measures to protect people from illness.
Dr. Ralf Reintjes, Professor of Epidemiology and Surveillance in Hamburg, Germany, and an Adjunct Professor at University of Tampere says “We are very pleased that our Course has been so successful in educating and motivating both students and experts in infectious disease epidemiology during the past two decades. Its popularity speaks to the growing relevance of the subject matter in today’s hyper-connected world in which goods, people and disease causing microbes may travel around the globe in a matter of hours.”
Additional information:
Professor Pekka Nuorti
School of Health Sciences