Evidence, Diet and Health
Course content
The focus of the course is how to assess available evidence for a causal relationship between lifestyle factors and diseases with a main focus on diets, foods, macronutrients and non-communicable diseases such as type-2 diabetes and cardiovascular disease. The course will provide the students with teaching in various methodological aspects and exercises and assignments that give them the opportunity to practise their skills and competences in evidence evaluation.
MSc Programme in Human Nutrition
The main objective of the course is to provide the students with
an understanding of basic methods and concepts in nutritional
epidemiology, to enable them to assess available evidence for
causal relationships between diet and health.
After completion of the course the students should be able to:
Knowledge:
- Define epidemiology and causality
- Describe the epidemiological measures of frequency and association
- Define and explain the concepts bias, confounding, effect modification, chance, power, validity and generalizability
- Classify epidemiological study designs, and describe their advantages and limitations in nutritional research
Skills:
- Demonstrate ability to read and understand results in scientific papers on epidemiological studies
- Evaluate strategies for statistical analysis in different types of epidemiological studies
- Critically assess the validity of studies on diet-health relationships
- Discuss the evidence for causal relationships between diet and health
- Make appropriate academic arguments in a discussion of epidemiological evidence
Competences:
- Perform evidence evaluations of relationships between dietary components and health
- Identify gaps in current knowledge and contribute to the planning of epidemiological studies
- Make dietary recommendations based on an evaluation of the evidence
Theoretical lectures and exercise practice. The objective of course assignments is to use of the principles in evaluation of scientific evidence.
All material for the course will be made available at study start on the course’s Absalon page.
Academic qualifications equivalent to a BSc degree are
recommended.
Knowledge and skills in nutrition, physiology, biochemistry, and
statistics are recommended.
We provide feedback on the written assignments in plenum.
- ECTS
- 7,5 ECTS
- Type of assessment
-
Oral examination, 20 minutes (48-hour preparation time)
- Type of assessment details
- The students will be given two papers to read 48 hours prior to the exam. They are allowed to meet and discuss the papers for the exam. The oral exam will take 20 minutes, where we will discuss selected aspects of the papers, aiming to check all three levels of competences. The evaluation will consider skills mainly from the strength of the arguments and an overall evaluation of their performance.
- Examination prerequisites
-
Approval of written assignments during the course.
- Aid
- No aids allowed
No aids are allowed for the oral exam, this includes notes.
- Marking scale
- 7-point grading scale
- Censorship form
- No external censorship
Several internal examiners
- Re-exam
-
Same as the ordinary exam.
The requirements for registration have to be fulfilled before re-exam. All assignments must be handed in no later than 3 weeks before reexamination. Assignments must be approved no later than 2 weeks before reexamination.
Criteria for exam assessment
See Learning Outcome
Single subject courses (day)
- Category
- Hours
- Lectures
- 16
- Preparation
- 70
- Exercises
- 52
- Exam Preparation
- 20
- Exam
- 48
- English
- 206
Kursusinformation
- Language
- English
- Course number
- LLEK10249U
- ECTS
- 7,5 ECTS
- Programme level
- Full Degree Master
- Duration
-
1 block
- Placement
- Block 1
- Schedulegroup
-
A
- Capacity
- No limitation – unless you register in the late-registration period (BSc and MSc) or as a credit or single subject student.
- Studyboard
- Study Board of Food, Human Nutrition and Sports
Contracting department
- Department of Nutrition, Exercise and Sports
Contracting faculty
- Faculty of Science
Course Coordinators
- Lotte Lauritzen (2-6f6f4371687b76316e7831676e)
- Christina Sonne Mogensen (3-6777714472697c77326f7932686f)
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