A. To provide training in National Burden of Disease Research Methodology:

Following the publication of the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) results (World Bank, 1993; Murray and Lopez, 1994, 1996, WHO, 1999), both individuals and organisations committed to health policy are hoping to gain insights from comprehensive assessment of disease burden at national and sub-national levels. The World Health Organisation (WHO) has launched a Global Program on Evidence and Information for Health Policy. Burden of disease estimates, namely disability adjusted life expectancy, and disability adjusted life years (DALY) were included by the WHO in the World Health Report (WHR) 2000.

The Institute of Health Systems has been working since 1994 to build capacity for estimating disease burden. The Institute has estimated burden of disease in Andhra Pradesh during the 1990s. Other burdern of disease estimation related research at the Institute include work on cause of death reporting systems, cause of death studies, health state valuation and health system responsiveness measurement. The objectives of the programme include:

1. To familiarise the participant with the burden of disease measurement concepts
2. To provide the participant with basic understanding of the interdisciplinary nature of the work and inputs from demography, epidemiology, health status measurement etc.
3. Explanation of Computational steps for estimation of disease burden.
4. To Identify Data inputs for estimation of disease burden. Highlighting national data resources against the overall data requirement for burden of disease estimation.
5. Imparting practical skills for computation of various burden of disease measures like the DALY and DALE.

Eligibility: Epidemiologists, Demographers, Public Health Administrators

B. To provide training in Cause of Death Research Methodology:

India is in the midst of a demographic transition characterised by appearance of non communicable diseases. Accurate data on the stage of transition will enable national allocation of resources to tackle major health problems. Currently the quality and availability of cause of death data both from urban and rural areas of India is poor. It is necessary that public health teachers, researchers and officials are made aware of the relevance and importance of their work and of the latest methodology for accurate and complete collection of cause of death data. This two week programme is aimed to train medical and health personnel who are interested in revamping, studying or researching various aspects of cause of death reporting systems in India. This course is designed for researchers who may be responsible for Cause of Death Statistics for estimation of NBD. These participants will find much more in-depth coverage of issues about cause of death statistics than what is covered in the NBD Course. Researchers who want to take up cause of death research in developing countries will also benefit.

Eligibility: Demographers, Medical Officers dealing with Vital Statistics, Faculty from SPM Departments of Medical Colleges, PG Students in Community Medicine/Public Health/Demography.

C. To provide training in Health Status Measurement Research Methodology:

Summary measures of population health are measures that combine information on mortality and nonfatal health outcomes to represent the health of a particular population as a single number. Interest in summary measures relates to a range of potential applications by using them. Health state valuation studies are required to measure people's valuation of different morbidity or health states. Alternative terms with similar meanings include health state preferences, health status measurement, and measurement of disability weights.

This ten day long course is structured around multimedia presentations, hands on experience with health status measurement data and project work using computers. The participants will be introduced to personal computing tools to help achieve their goals and improve their performance. A unifying theme of this course is the first hand knowledge of the researchers who shared their experience of the AP Health State Valuation Study, the first ever community study in the world.

The course is useful for researchers, epidemiologists and clinicians at all levels working in any public health or medical care setting in the public or the private sector and the course objectives include imparting the necessary skills and tools to a prospective researcher so that he/she can conduct a health status measurement study independently. Imparting the state of the art knowledge along with reference material in health status measurement is one of the primary objectives of the course. Besides imparting the technological support tools along with the research tools for conducting this type of research, this course also enables the participants to analyse real data that has already been collected by the institute in the first every community study in the developing world.

Eligibility: Researchers, epidemiologists, clinicians at all levels working in any public health or medical care setting in the public or the private sector.