Danish Cancer Society, 12-23
August 2024
Course text Book:
The textbook for the summer course: "Cancer Epidemiology: Principles
and Methods" by Isabel dos Santos Silva. IARC 1999. It can be
downloaded for free from IARC,
here.
You do not have to read the textbook before the course, but you may
want to look into it before the course. If you want a printed copy,
please print this yourself beforehand, as it will not be possible to
print during the course.
Measures of Disease Occurrence: Tuesday 13, Wednesday 14
Analysis of Epidemiological Data: Tuesday 20, Wednesday 21
Esa Läärä, Bendix Carstensen
- Lectures:
- Measures of Disease Frequency and Effects
13-14 August 2024
(Esa Läärä)
- Analysis of Epidemiological Data
20-21 August 2024
(Bendix Carstensen)
- Practical exercises
(assisted by Mia Klinten Grand, Giulia Corn, Anders Tolver)
- The exercises in this course requires you to do some statistical calculations.
But we guess you do not have a hand calculator, and assume that you have
a laptop and therefore can use the free statistical program
R
as a calculator. This will enable you to take the solutions with you
home in the form of a file with computer code that does the
analyses. It will also enable you to do analyses repeatedly on
slightly different sets of data.
- You can obtain
R
from CRAN (the
Comprehensive
R
Archive
Network):
Under
"Download and Install R" click on
"R for Windows", click on
"Install R for the first time", and then on
"Download R 4.4.1 for Windows", which is a
self-extracting installer. This means that if you save it
to your computer somewhere and click on it, it will install
R
for you (provided that you answer the questions you are asked).
- The Epi add-on package for
R
will be needed too. Once you have installed
R
, start it, and in the menu bar click on
Packages -> Install package(s)..., chose a
mirror (this is just a server where you can get the stuff), and then
the Epi package.
Start
R
and write:
> library(Epi)
> sessionInfo()
- from the output of the last command it should be clear that you have
R version 4.4.1 (or later) and
version 2.53 of the Epi package.
- Practical Exercises
contains the exercises that you will go through during the
practicals sessions in the two modules "Measures of disease
frequency and effects" and "Analysis of Epidemiological Data".
It also contains a very short introduction to getting and using
R,
and a section with basic probability concepts in epidemiology and
demography.
- This
folder contains a number of R-scripts relating to the
practicals. Hopefully the filenames are informative.
- An
introduction to R for Epidemiology may be of interest for
you (about 50 pages).
- NORDCAN is
an interactive database where you can get information on cancer
occurrence in the Nordic countries. It will also be used during the
exercises.
- After the course
You can have more information about the
Epi package for
R
here.
You can enhance your
R
skills by attending the
course Statistical Practice
in Epidemiology with R (in 2025, though).
For more advanced studies you may be interested in looking at the book
"Epidemiology with R" by Bendix Carstensen
- Previous courses, lectures, slides etc.
Last updated 4 August 2024, BxC