Population Science

1. Introduction to Population Science

• Define population science, social science and public health
• Understand how they relate to healthcare
• Be able to interpret population graphs
• Be able to make inferences about the population demographics from them

2. Describing Data and Testing Hypotheses

• Match variable types to summaries and distributions, then interpret uncertainty, errors, power, test choice and diagnostic performance.

3. Epidemiological Studies

• Define the types of Epidemiological Studies and their flaws
• Be able to calculate Confidence Intervals and Error Factors
• Be able to work out Statistical Significance 

• Understand the definition of health and chronic disease
• Understand the possible causes of links between health and deprivation
• Understand the two models of health: biological and biopsychosocial
• Understand the inequalities across Britain with regards to health and well-being
• Understand why people perform health behaviours, through conditioning and the COM-B model
• Better understand the treatments of substance abuse when considering the different models of behaviour

• Understand the effect of disability on a person’s life
• Define lay beliefs and understand how this can influence health behaviours
• Understand the reasons for adherence to treatments
• Be able to describe the levels of health prevention, and with screening programs as an example, be able to explain the related key terms and evaluations of them

• Understand the reasoning behind prioritisation in healthcare
• Be able to use work out cost per QALY
• Understand the differences between and evaluate both implicit and explicit reasoning
• Be able to use the four different cost-benefit analysis styles and be able to choose the right one

• Understand why evidence is needed in medicine, and the difficulties of getting it into practice.
• Understand what a systematic review is, and the criticisms of it.
• Understand what a meta-analysis is, and the criticisms of it.
• Understand a forest plot.
• Understand the fixed effect and random effects model.
• Describe common issues with variation between studies and how these can be combatted.
• Describe and explain publication bias using funnel plots.

• Understand the use of PROMs and be able to evaluate a PROM.
• List some of the ways that the NHS has changed recently to improve patient quality and safety.
• Define an adverse effect.
• Describe types of human error, and the things put into place within the NHS to try to help.
• Understand the James Reason Framework of Error, the Swiss Cheese Model and the differences between latent and active failures.
• Understand the differences between first and second order problem solving.
• Describe the toolbox of things used in root cause analysis.
• Describe the difficulties faced when needing to speak up, and the ways in which the NHS has tried to make this easier.

• A succinct summary of the core concepts, knowledge bites, terms and definitions required to accurately understand Population and Social Science.