After the course the student:
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knows the principle routes of exposure (inhalation, dermal uptake, ingestion) and is able to determine their relative significance in different exposure settings, and different types and patterns of exposure (e.g. accidental/deliberate, environmental/occupational, occasional/continuous, etc.);
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knows the principles of emission estimation and source-pathway-receptor relationships in exposure assessment and can quantify emission in a well described situation;
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knows the most common biomarkers of exposure, and can determine their applicability in a well described situation;
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is able to take the impact of patterns of use (frequency, duration, application methods) and risk management measures (PPE, RPE, engineering controls, human factors affecting exposure) into account when assessing (non)occupational exposure;
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is acquainted with different direct (i.e. measurement) means of assessing human exposure to hazardous substances, the strengths and limitations of the different techniques and their applicability in different settings;
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knows methods for assessing exposure retrospectively (questionnaires, interviews, use of records for assessing exposure) including their strengths and limitations and can select the appropriate method in any given situation;
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knows the most commonly used exposure models, can use the relevant computer applications and knows how to deal with uncertainty and variability in these models;
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knows the concept of exposure scenarios and is able to apply appropriate exposure factors and time-activity data for different exposure scenarios;
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knows the basic principles, structure of, and advantages and disadvantages of the different epidemiological study designs;
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is able to chose an appropriate epidemiological study design in a given situation;
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can apply systematic review methods, including meta-analysis as means of investigating heterogeneities between studies;
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can apply systematic review methods as means of synthesizing measures of effect;
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knows the principles of regression analysis and is able apply these based on given data;
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knows the influence on the outcomes of epidemiological studies of factors like power, sensitivity, data quality, exposure misclassification, confounding, bias and selection;
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knows how chemical substances are absorbed, distributed, metabolized and excreted (ADME) by the human body;
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can discern different types of toxicity (local/systemic, acute/chronic, single/repeat dose);
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knows all different endpoints of toxicity;
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knows the toxicology of individual organ systems including, the liver, kidney, gastrointestinal tract, skin, central and peripheral nervous system, endocrine system, musculo-skeletal system, immune system, cardiorespiratory system, reproductive system and haematopoietic system;
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is acquainted with the toxicology of mixtures;
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can recognize and use non-linear dose-response curves in health effects assessment;
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knows the concepts of threshold and non threshold effects, and knows how these two concepts are applied in the derivation of health based standards (health criteria values;
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recognizes the strengths and limitations of toxicological and epidemiological approaches in risk assessment;
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knows how to combine epidemiological, toxicological and exposure information in characterising risk;
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knows the factors that can influence risk characterisation (e.g. extrapolation, uncertainties and data gaps) and can apply these in a well described situation;
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knows how regulatory and public-health based standards are derived from health criteria values;
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can determine exceedance of health criteria values, can assess the associated risks and can propose measures to control these risks;
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knows the major toxicological databases and information sources of relevance to health risk assessment, and knows their reliability;
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knows the principles of dose extrapolation and can apply assessment/uncertainty factors to account for intra- and inter-species variability;
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is able to evaluate the suitability and applicability of use of different exposure-response estimation techniques;
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is acquainted with the most common test methods in toxicology including computational toxicology (e.g. quantitative structure-activity relationships (QSARs)), in vitro and in vivo testing methods, for testing of chemicals;
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illustrate epidemiological designs frequently used in environmental epidemiology and less in other applications of (clinical) epidemiology;
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illustrate new designs for environmental exposure assessment;
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illustrate the impact of measurement error in exposure on effect estimates;
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provide practical training in performing specific epidemiological analyses.
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Period (from – till): short courses during whole study year
Lecturer(s):
Diverse staf IRAS, Fac Diergeneeskunde
Specialization course:
Each student is expected to attend so called ‘specialisation courses’. Each specialisation consists of obligatory and free to be chosen courses. These lecture days of choice should concise of (advanced) epidemiological or statistical courses. Listed below are the courses per specialisation.
Occupational and Environmental Epidemiology (OE) – programme director: Prof D Heederik
| At least 6 EC of the following courses: |
| Exposure Assessment in Epidemiology (3 EC) |
| Effects assessment in toxicology and environmental epidemiology (6 EC) |
| Risk assessment and risk management (3 EC) |
| Environmental and occupational epidemiology (3 EC) |
| Add other courses * to reach te total amount of EC’s for the specialisation programme |
* These other courses do not need to be within the same specialisation, but they do need to
- be epidemiological courses and/or statistical courses and/or;
- be for PhD students with a TSA, part of the obligatory programme specific courses at the PhD program the student is enrolled in.
Literature/study material used
Depending on chosen courses
Mandatory for students in own Master’s programme:
N.A.
Optional for students in other GSLS Master’s programme:
No
Prerequisite knowledge:
Introduction to Epidemiology
Introduction to Statistics
Classical Methods in Data Analysis
Modern Methods in Data Analysis
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