Life Course Epidemiology

(2 Credits)

Over the past several decades, the life course approach has provided a framework for epidemiologists to understand the cause and development of various health outcomes across the life span. Longitudinal epidemiological studies that are built based on this framework have substantially contributed to our understanding of risk factors of disease. In this course, we provide an overview of the life course approach and demonstrate how it is applied in various domains of epidemiological research. We also discuss the major biological mechanisms through which exposures at one timepoint can affect health years or even generations later. This course will cover life course concepts and study designs and introduce some of the analytical methods related to life-course epidemiology. In each session, we provide examples of studies from each domain, e.g., reproductive epidemiology, psychiatric epidemiology, environmental epidemiology, etc., to illustrate major methodological challenges and provide solutions that are specific to each area of epidemiology. Along the way, students will be introduced to a number of landmark cohort studies, both historic and contemporary.