2026

Epidemiology and Public Health

Name: Epidemiology and Public Health
Code: ENF13669O
6 ECTS
Duration: 15 weeks/156 hours
Scientific Area: Health Sciences

Teaching languages: Portuguese
Languages of tutoring support: Portuguese

Sustainable Development Goals

Learning Goals

Acquire knowledge about specific concepts and methods in Epidemiology;
Acquire knowledge about epidemiological studies (characteristics, advantages, limitations and planning);
Acquire knowledge about the main health / disease indicators;
Demonstrate the importance of prevention practices, individual and collective and the importance of environmental, socioeconomic and professional factors in the prevention and treatment of diseases;
Demonstrate the importance of applying epidemiological methods to diagnose the health situation of the communities and the risk factors involved.

Contents

Evolution of epidemiological thinking
Descriptive epidemiology: People, place and time
Dynamics of disease transmission
Natural history of the disease
Measuring health and illness: measures of frequency, association and impact
Epidemiological studies
Epidemiological research planning

Teaching Methods

The master will be used to present theoretical subjects, which introduce the fundamental contents, rules and assumptions related to the issues of epidemiology and their framing in the area of Public Health. This is followed by classes of a more dynamic nature (TP), as well as seminar sessions (totaling 4/5) for presentation and reflection on central themes of epidemiology in close articulation with the situations experienced by epidemic outbreaks, such as the current one.
The evaluation will be carried out through the elaboration of two written tests, an individual and a group. Each test corresponds to 50% of the final grade.
All UC support material will be placed on the Moodle platform (from exercise materials to articles to support thematic content).