Epidemiology, Biostatistics and Population Health

Introduction

The Epidemiology and Population Health Group has four main goals:
(1) To describe disease patterns in human populations
(2) To identify the etiology of major public health problems in the country
(3) To provide data essential for the management, evaluation and planning of services for the prevention, control and treatment of disease in India
(4) To contribute to the improvement of population health through effective teaching

It aims to achieve these goals of knowledge creation, knowledge translation and knowledge application through active participation in research, teaching and consultancy. The group is involved in several applied epidemiology and population health research projects in the focus areas of Maternal and Child Health, Lifestyle Diseases, Chronic Noncommunicable Diseases and Health Systems. The group undertakes teaching of community health and epidemiology for medical and allied health students, interns, faculty, researchers and government staff and also organizes short courses in health research methodology annually in India and abroad. It also offers consultancy services to government and private organizations in the field of public health. In addition, it assists with primary health care in urban slums of Bangalore and lifestyle disease preventive care in St. John’s Hospital.

The Biostatistics group is involved in training, consultation services and research. The statisticians in the group conduct statistics training sessions for PhD scholars, medical health professionals and nursing students. The faculty teach in other courses offered at the Research Institute. The group organizes lectures and workshops by visiting faculty to broaden the understanding of biostatistics techniques. The group actively collaborates with researchers at the St. John’s Research Institute, Medical College and Hospital from the time of conceptualization of a study through its execution until publication of the findings. The group also offers statistical consultation for the medical and nursing post graduate students with their projects. The research interests of the statisticians range from longitudinal data analysis, missing data analysis, latent structure models and multilevel modelling.
 
The division deals with various epidemiological research projects in the fields of noncommunicable diseases and infectious diseases. It is also involved in various multi-disciplinary collaborative research projects across a span of focus areas such as Chronic and Infectious Disease, Maternal and Child Health and Neurocognitive Assessments.