M.Sc. Thesis Epidemiology
Students will study the foundations and principles of epidemiology and applied biostatistics, in order to design, conduct, and analyze clinical, population-based, environmental, policy, and methodological health-related research. Graduates will be prepared to engage in scientific collaboration, and communicate results to other scientists and diverse audiences.
For eligible clinicians: there is the possibility of completing the program in one year. Please see "M.Sc. intensive for clinicians" tab.
Program Requirements
Thesis Course (21 credits)
EPIB 690. M.Sc. Thesis.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 21
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
Terms Offered: Summer 2025
View offerings for in Visual Schedule Builder.
Description
Thesis research under supervision.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
Required Courses (21 credits)
Students exempted from any of the courses listed below must replace them with additional complementary course credits.
EPIB 601. Fundamentals of Epidemiology.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 4
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
This course aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to epidemiologic concepts and corresponding terms. After an introduction to the history, definition, and purposes of epidemiology, "core" concepts that are relevant in several areas of investigation (e.g., etiologic research, health care research, and community medicine practice) will be presented.
- Restrictions: Not open to students who have taken EPIB 606. Open to students in Epidemiology or Biostatistics programs, or permission of instructor.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 603. Intermediate Epidemiology.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 4
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Concepts and methods for epidemiology at the intermediate level, including causation, measures of disease occurrence and effect, study designs, biases in epidemiologic research, interaction, and data analysis for categorical and survival data using statistical software.
- Restriction: Not open to students who have taken EPIB 634.
- Prerequisite(s): EPIB 601, EPIB 607, and PPHS 602.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 605. Critical Appraisal in Epidemiology.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 1
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
This course provides the opportunity to develop skills to critically evaluate evidence presented in the biomedical and health sciences literature, based on the concepts acquired in the epidemiology introductory courses.
- Prerequisites: EPIB 601 and EPIB 607.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 607. Inferential Statistics.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 4
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Introduction to the basic principles of statistical inference used in clinical and epidemiologic research. Topics include variability; methods of processing and describing data; sampling and sampling distributions; inferences regarding means and proportions, non-parametric methods, regression and correlation.
- Prerequisite (Undergraduate): A first year course in undergraduate differential and integral calculus.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 613. Introduction to Statistical Software.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 1
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Introduction to statistical software and data management; including basics of entering, manipulating data and elementary statistical analysis, SAS software, with reference to other packages of potential interest to students (R, Stata, SPSS).
- Prerequisite: Enrolment in Epidemiology stream program or permission of instructor.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 621. Data Analysis in Health Sciences.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 4
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Univariate and multivariate statistical techniques for continuous categorical and survival data. Topics include generalized linear models, multiple linear and logistic regression, introductory survival analysis, model selection. Maximum likelihood and Bayesean approaches will be presented.
- Prerequisite(s): EPIB 601 and EPIB 607 of permission of instructor.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
PPHS 602. Foundations of Population Health.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 3
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Introduction to population health and the conceptual basis of the population health approach to measuring disease occurrence and to prevention. Fundamentals of, and methods for, studying burden of disease in population, and how these differ across time, space, and groups. Topics include population dynamics, denominators, occurrence of events, time, person and place, health indicators, standardization, life tables, age, cohort and period effects, disease surveillance and vital statistics. Introduction to the concepts and principles of measurement including measurement error, validity, reliability, and accuracy.
- Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken EPIB 602 or EPIB 614.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
Complementary Course (3 credits)
3 credits of coursework, at the 500 level or higher, chosen in consultation with the student's academic adviser or supervisor.
Core learning objectives
The general objective of the core teaching program in epidemiology is to introduce students to the principles and methods of epidemiologic research in order to enable them to design, conduct, analyze, and interpret epidemiologic research. Upon the completion of their MSc degree, students should have acquired an understanding of the following broad topics:
- the contribution of epidemiology and biostatistics to health research
- design, conduct, and analysis of epidemiologic studies
- critical appraisal of epidemiologic studies, synthesis and integration of epidemiologic research, and causal inference in epidemiologic research
- communication of scientific results
In addition, students should have acquired a basic knowledge of some substantive epidemiology, including a general appreciation of broad public health problems in Canada and internationally.
Students in the thesis program complete 24 credits of coursework and submit a thesis (21 credits). A thesis for the Master's degree must show familiarity with previous work in the field and must demonstrate ability to carry out research and to organize results. The thesis must be expressed in good literate style. An exhaustive review of work in the particular field of study is not necessarily required, nor is original scholarship necessarily expected. As an alternative to the traditional thesis format, the thesis can consist of one or more manuscripts. The student must be the first author in at least one of the manuscripts describing the major contribution of the thesis research. If this option is chosen, all components must be integrated into a cohesive unit with a logical progression from one chapter to the next; connecting text that provides logical bridges preceding and following each manuscript is mandatory.
M.Sc. thesis research involving human participants, animal subjects, microorganisms, living cells, biohazards, and/or radioactive materials, must have the appropriate compliance certification. Students must apply for Institutional Review Board (IRB) approval themselves or, if appropriate, have IRB approval to be included under the supervisor's IRB approval. In addition, all students must complete the in order to graduate. Supervisors may add students directly to their existing approved IRB protocols. IRB approval (or a waiver from a 黑料社 IRB committee) is required for graduation.
Program Milestones
Nomination of Supervisor
Students will need to identify an academic supervisor and thesis committee no later than 15 February of their first year of study. The supervisor should be a faculty member in the department who has primary supervisory privileges. If the supervisor and student determine that a co-supervisor is beneficial, this co-supervisor can be either from the department or from outside the department. There must be a minimum of two 黑料社-affiliated faculty members on the thesis committee.
Forms
Graduate Student Research Progress Tracking
Completed tracking forms are required to demonstrate a student鈥檚 satisfactory progress in the MSc program as of May 15 of their first year of study. Tracking forms must be submitted to the gradcoord1.eboh [at] mcgill.ca by November 15 and May 15 each year until thesis submission.
Forms
Research Proposal
Students must submit a research proposal to the SAO no later than September 1 of their second year of study.
MSc Epidemiology Thesis Proposal
M.Sc. theses will be read and evaluated by an external examiners and will be given a pass-fail grade. If the examiner has given a failing grade to the M.Sc. thesis, full instructions on how to proceed will be sent to the candidate, the supervisor and the unit head by Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
A public presentation of the M.Sc. thesis work (at a scientific conference or at a seminar at 黑料社 or elsewhere) is strongly recommended for all M.Sc. thesis students.
MSc Epidemiology Program Guide
Program Director:
mabel.carabali [at] mcgill.ca (Mabel Carabali)听(滨苍迟别谤颈尘)
Program Advisor:
alton.russell [at] mcgill.ca (Alton Russell)
M.Sc. Intensive for Clinicians
Students will study the foundations and principles of epidemiology and applied biostatistics, in order to design, conduct, and analyze clinical, population-based, environmental, policy, and methodological health-related research. Graduates will be prepared to engage in scientific collaboration, and communicate results to other scientists and diverse audiences.
Thesis Course (21 credits)
EPIB 690. M.Sc. Thesis.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 21
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
Terms Offered: Summer 2025
View offerings for in Visual Schedule Builder.
Description
Thesis research under supervision.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
Required Courses (21 credits)
Students exempted from any of the courses listed below must replace them with additional complementary course credits.
EPIB 601. Fundamentals of Epidemiology.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 4
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
This course aims to provide a comprehensive introduction to epidemiologic concepts and corresponding terms. After an introduction to the history, definition, and purposes of epidemiology, "core" concepts that are relevant in several areas of investigation (e.g., etiologic research, health care research, and community medicine practice) will be presented.
- Restrictions: Not open to students who have taken EPIB 606. Open to students in Epidemiology or Biostatistics programs, or permission of instructor.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 603. Intermediate Epidemiology.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 4
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Concepts and methods for epidemiology at the intermediate level, including causation, measures of disease occurrence and effect, study designs, biases in epidemiologic research, interaction, and data analysis for categorical and survival data using statistical software.
- Restriction: Not open to students who have taken EPIB 634.
- Prerequisite(s): EPIB 601, EPIB 607, and PPHS 602.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 605. Critical Appraisal in Epidemiology.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 1
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
This course provides the opportunity to develop skills to critically evaluate evidence presented in the biomedical and health sciences literature, based on the concepts acquired in the epidemiology introductory courses.
- Prerequisites: EPIB 601 and EPIB 607.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 607. Inferential Statistics.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 4
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Introduction to the basic principles of statistical inference used in clinical and epidemiologic research. Topics include variability; methods of processing and describing data; sampling and sampling distributions; inferences regarding means and proportions, non-parametric methods, regression and correlation.
- Prerequisite (Undergraduate): A first year course in undergraduate differential and integral calculus.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 613. Introduction to Statistical Software.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 1
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Introduction to statistical software and data management; including basics of entering, manipulating data and elementary statistical analysis, SAS software, with reference to other packages of potential interest to students (R, Stata, SPSS).
- Prerequisite: Enrolment in Epidemiology stream program or permission of instructor.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
EPIB 621. Data Analysis in Health Sciences.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 4
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Univariate and multivariate statistical techniques for continuous categorical and survival data. Topics include generalized linear models, multiple linear and logistic regression, introductory survival analysis, model selection. Maximum likelihood and Bayesean approaches will be presented.
- Prerequisite(s): EPIB 601 and EPIB 607 of permission of instructor.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
PPHS 602. Foundations of Population Health.
Note: For information about Fall 2025 and Winter 2026 course offerings, please check back on May 8, 2025. Until then, the "Terms offered" field will appear blank for most courses while the class schedule is being finalized.
Credits: 3
Offered by: Epidemiology and Biostatistics (Graduate Studies)
This course is not offered this catalogue year.
Description
Introduction to population health and the conceptual basis of the population health approach to measuring disease occurrence and to prevention. Fundamentals of, and methods for, studying burden of disease in population, and how these differ across time, space, and groups. Topics include population dynamics, denominators, occurrence of events, time, person and place, health indicators, standardization, life tables, age, cohort and period effects, disease surveillance and vital statistics. Introduction to the concepts and principles of measurement including measurement error, validity, reliability, and accuracy.
- Restriction(s): Not open to students who have taken EPIB 602 or EPIB 614.
Most students use Visual Schedule Builder (VSB) to organize their schedules. VSB helps you plan class schedules, travel time, and more.
Complementary Course (3 credits)
3 credits of coursework, at the 500 level or higher, chosen in consultation with the student's academic adviser or supervisor.
Core learning objectives
This document
MSc Epeidemiology Program Guide聽outlines objectives of the core program for all M.Sc. students registered in the epidemiology program. The document was designed to facilitate the planning of courses and other learning activities, and to help students identify learning objectives. The objectives presented here may be met in a variety of ways: course work, the conduct of the thesis or non-thesis M.Sc. project, other research and participation in other academic activities such as departmental seminars.
Students in the thesis program complete 24 credits of coursework and submit a thesis (21 credits). A thesis for the Master's degree must show familiarity with previous work in the field and must demonstrate ability to carry out research and to organize results. The thesis must be expressed in good literate style. An exhaustive review of work in the particular field of study is not necessarily required, nor is original scholarship necessarily expected. As an alternative to the traditional thesis format, the thesis can consist of one or more papers of which the student is an author or co-author. If this option is chosen, all components must be integrated into a cohesive unit with a logical progression from one chapter to the next; connecting text that provides logical bridges preceding and following each manuscript is mandatory.
To be considered for admission, students interested in the intensive M.Sc. for clinicians option must have identified a Departmental supervisor or co-supervisor as well as a thesis topic at the time of application. The proposed thesis must use data already collected to allow for the completion of all the requirements for the M.Sc. by the end of August of the year after admission to the program. It is also expected that successful applicants will not be required to have any clinical duties during the 12 month period of study.
Applicants to the intensive M.Sc. for clinicians option must contact Dr. Pierre Ernst (see contact details below) for further information and to assure that the planned research program meets all requirements of the M.Sc. thesis program.
M.Sc. theses involving human participants, animal subjects, microorganisms, living cells, biohazards, and/or radioactive materials, must include the appropriate compliance certification. Supervisors may add students directly to their existing approved IRB protocols. IRB approval (or a waiver from a 黑料社 IRB committee) is required for graduation.
Completed progress and tracking forms are required to demonstrate satisfactory progress in the M.Sc. program (see website for details: /epi-biostat-occh/student-affairs/academic-information/policies
M.Sc. theses will be read and evaluated by an external examiners and will be given a pass-fail grade. If the examiner has given a failing grade to the M.Sc. thesis, full instructions on how to proceed will be sent to the candidate, the supervisor and the unit head by Graduate and Postdoctoral Studies.
A public presentation of the M.Sc. thesis work (at a scientific conference or at a seminar at 黑料社 or elsewhere) is strongly recommended for all M.Sc. thesis students.
M.Sc. Intensive Advisor:
pierre.ernst [at] mcgill.ca (subject: M.Sc.%20Epidemiology%20Intensive%20Program%20for%20Clinicians%20inquiry) (Pierre Ernst)
Program Advisor:
alton.russell [at] mcgill.ca (Alton Russell)
Program Director:
mabel.carabali [at] mcgill.ca (Mabel Carabali)听(滨苍迟别谤颈尘)