About This Course
This course translates a full academic chapter on infectious disease epidemiology into a structured, self-paced learning path. It combines conceptual foundations with worked numerical examples and real outbreak case studies, and is suitable as a stand-alone module or as part of a broader field epidemiology / public health curriculum.
33
Lessons
6
Topic Modules
76
Quiz Questions
Course Outline
Course Instructor
Orientation
Course orientation, learning objectives, and navigation guide.
Module 1 — Foundations: Agent, Host, and Environment
The global and institutional burden of infectious disease.
The classic agent-host-environment framework for disease causality.
Bacteria, viruses, and rickettsia — definitions and disease examples.
Fungi, protozoa, helminths, and arthropods — definitions and disease examples.
Infectivity, pathogenicity, virulence, toxigenicity, resistance, and antigenicity.
Module 2 — Host Defenses and the Environment as Reservoir
Skin, mucosa, gastric acid, and phagocytes as first-line barriers.
The active/passive and natural/artificial immunity matrix.
Physical vs. social environment, and the concept of an environmental reservoir.
Environmental, animal (zoonotic), and human reservoirs, including chronic carriers.
Module 3 — How Infections Spread
Person-to-person spread without an intermediary.
Distinguishing vehicles, fomites, and vectors in indirect spread.
Matching portals of exit to portals of entry along the transmission chain.
Subclinical infection, asymptomatic transmission, and the iceberg model.
Two related but distinct timing concepts in infectious disease spread.
Population-level protection and why immunity thresholds differ by disease.
Module 4 — Measuring Outbreaks
Formula, worked example, and use in foodborne outbreak investigation.
Formula, index/coprimary cases, and two worked real-world examples.
Two related but distinct denominators, with a worked plague example.
What R0 means and how it’s used in transmission modeling.
The five-step framework tracing back to John Snow’s cholera investigation.
Module 5 — Infectious Diseases in Practice
Common foodborne agents, incubation periods, and the food production chain.
Cholera, schistosomiasis, and amebiasis, with real outbreak case studies.
Surveillance trends, HAART, and global HIV burden.
From vaccine licensure to elimination to imported-case resurgence.
TB resurgence trends and the internationally significant 2007 XDR-TB case.
Comparing transmission, chronicity, and vaccine status across hepatitis A-E.
Anthrax, brucellosis, Q fever, and rabies as examples of zoonotic transmission.
San Joaquin Valley fever, soil exposure, and California/Arizona case patterns.
West Nile virus and Lyme disease as arthropod-borne case studies.
Definitions, drivers, and two case studies: hantavirus and E. coli O157:H7.
Module 6 — Synthesis and Assessment
Pulling the course framework together with a recap quiz.
Comprehensive final assessment covering all course modules.