Not so long ago, it was almost guaranteed that you would die of an infectious disease. In fact, had you been born just 150 years ago, your chances of dying of an infectious disease before you've reached the tender age of 5 would have been extremely high.
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Epidemics - the Dynamics of Infectious Diseases
The Pennsylvania State UniversityÜber diesen Kurs
Kompetenzen, die Sie erwerben
- Biology
- Microbiology
- Public Health
- Vaccine Development
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The Pennsylvania State University
Founded in 1855 as Pennsylvania's only land-grant university, The Pennsylvania State University combines academic rigor with a vibrant campus life. A nationally recognized Research-I institution, Penn State teaches students to be leaders with a global perspective.
Lehrplan - Was Sie in diesem Kurs lernen werden
Course Introduction
Welcome to Epidemics: the Dynamics of Infectious Diseases. This course will teach you about the variety of parasitic organisms that infect humans, animals, and plants, how these parasites spread through populations, and the various methods that we employ to control them.
Pathogens
In the first module, you will learn about the organisms that can infect us and make us sick: pathogens. We will first take a look at the various types of pathogens that exist, and then learn about what it means to be infectious, and what it means to cause disease. After that, we will cover the various methods by which pathogens can transmit from one person to the next, thereby causing an epidemic. You will learn about the most important number in all of epidemiology, R0, and why this number is so important. Finally, we will learn that microorganisms are not always harmful, but can be beneficial to us as well.
Hosts
The second module of the course covers host factors that determine the outcome of infection. We will first focus on host immunity and present both the general immune capabilities—the innate immune response—that are encoded in our genes and that provide the initial response to infection and the adaptive immune response, which arises from highly specialized cells that protect against a specific pathogen. You will then learn about the ways that pathogens circumvent these two types of immunity and consider other factors that can contribute to an individual becoming infected or diseased—including genetic factors, other microbes, and how social and emotional factors influence immunity. We will then consider how infection with a microorganism causes disease and how public health officials determine whether a disease outbreak is caused by an infectious organism.
Basics of Ecology
The third module of the course covers ecological factors that influence the dynamic patterns of infectious disease. We will discuss the conditions under which a pathogen can drive its host to extinction. We will look at how the demography of the host may allow the pathogen to persist in some populations but not others. We will talk about how host and pathogen characteristics interact to shape different temporal patterns of disease incidence at the population level and discuss the ecological consequences of infecting more than one host species.
Epidemiology
Where humans live and how they are connected to each other, have strong effects on how infectious diseases can spread. In this module, you will learn about some of the related key concepts of epidemiology. After looking at some fascinating history, we’ll learn about social networks as the ultimate “road map” on which diseases can travel and we’ll talk about how the structure of the network can influence disease dynamics. After that, we’ll cover three topics that all affect infectious disease epidemiology in dramatic ways: human transport systems, population density and so-called superspreaders - individuals who can spread a disease to dozens or even hundreds of other individuals. We’ll close by identifying what information is required for disease surveillance.
Bewertungen
- 5 stars81,13 %
- 4 stars16,48 %
- 3 stars1,79 %
- 2 stars0,43 %
- 1 star0,14 %
Top-Bewertungen von EPIDEMICS - THE DYNAMICS OF INFECTIOUS DISEASES
The course was interesting and very well structured. I thank the Coursera team and as well as the instructors for their sharing their valuable time and knowledge.
The instructors were very good and many of there examples were very interesting. Of particular interest to me, was the story of the Irish potato famine and the the zombie ants.
Very good, connected also to relatively recent outbreaks. Maybe some miniquiz/few question after each block would be nice to sum it up and help with preparing for quiz after whole week.
Thank you to all the members of course on this great effort has been spectacular and of course benefited him a lot and was very entertaining explanation you are great
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