Epidemiology

M.Sc, Ph.D

This program aims to provide students with the educational opportunities needed to acquire the knowledge, attitudes and methodological skills necessary to participate in health services or epidemiology research teams or in public health practice.

The M.Sc. program offers the chance to specialize in one of three streams of study:

• Epidemiology and Population Health
• Health Services and Policy Research
• Clinical Epidemiology

Students graduate from the program with an ability to communicate scientifically, describe trends and patterns of disease incidence and prevalence, critically review scientific literature related to community health and epidemiology; apply epidemiologic and analytic methods in the design of research; collect, analyze and interpret health data; conduct a study; and write and defend a thesis.

The Ph.D. program trains epidemiologists as independent investigators and leaders in health or health-related agencies where research is an important function.

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"The Queen's graduate training program in Epidemiology is an excellent choice for your higher education. Research opportunities are diverse, ranging from injury prevention to comparing effectiveness of cancer treatments to rural and Aboriginal health programs. Combined with the intimate and supportive environment cultivated by the faculty, the Queen's Epidemiology program is an outstanding choice for your graduate career!"

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Degrees Offered / Length of Program

• M.Sc.: 2 years
• Ph.D.: 4 years

Method of Completion

• M.Sc.: course work (4 core courses, 3 electives) + thesis
  
• Ph.D.: course work, (3 core courses), comprehensive exam, and dissertation

Degree Level Expectations & Learning Outcomes

M.Sc - view this information as a PDF (170KB)

Supervisors and Fields of Study

We require all Ph.D. program applicants to contact a potential supervisor before applying.

• Dr Beatriz Alvarado: Social determinants of health, aging, international health, and HIV/AIDS
• Dr. Kristan Aronson: Causes of breast and prostate cancers
• Dr. Judy-Anne Chapman: Transdisciplinary breast cancer research: proposing statistical standardization of hormone receptor values, improvements for cancer survival analyses, and new genome era tumour sample size considerations.
• Dr. Bingshu Chen: Survival analysis; design and analysis of clinical trials, cancer genetics and epidemiology.
• Dr. Patti Groome: Clinical epidemiology and the delivery of cancer related health services.
• Dr. Duncan Hunter: Methods of assessing the population requirement for health services; the use of administrative databases for health research;applied methods.
• Dr. Ian Janssen: Surveillance of obesity, sarcopenia and physical inactivity; causes and consequences of obesity in children and adults; causes and consequences of sarcopenia in older adults; clinical measurements and classification of obesity, sarcopenia and physical inactivity; obesity and sarcopenia.
• Dr. Ana Johnson: Cost-effectiveness analysis; uncertainty; decision analysis; HIV, cancer, orthopaedics, hypertension.
• Dr. Will King: The effect of environmental exposures on risk for cancer and adverse reproductive outcomes.
• Ms. Hélène Ouellette-Kuntz: The health and well-being of persons with intellectual disabilities.  Epidemiology of autism spectrum disorders
• Dr. Bill Mackillop: Health services research.
• Dr. Paul Peng: Cure models; multivariate survival models; statistical computing and Bayesian methods; statistical genetics and microarray data analysis; ROC modeling; statistical consulting
• Dr. William Pickett: Pediatric health, injury control research, agricultural health and safety research, clinical epidemiology
• Dr. Harriet Richardson: Cancer; sexually-transmitted infections; molecular epidemiology; chemoprevention; modifiable risk factors (environment & lifestyle)
• Dr. Heather Stuart: Psychiatric epidemiology; community mental health 

Employment Opportunities

Our graduates go on to rewarding careers in a variety of health and health-related agencies.

Funding Information

Minimum Guaranteed Funding: $18,000 for Ph.D. students for four years.  MSc students will receive a funding package but there is no minimum guaranteed amount. The department makes every attempt to put individual funding packages together that meet contemporary standards for graduate study.

We encourage all students to apply for Queen’s Fellowship and Graduate Awards, Ontario Graduate Scholarships and tri-council grants. Queen’s automatically issues a $5,000 top-up to all tri-council winners. We encourage second-year students to apply for our internal awards:

• Empire Life Fellowship in Child Health Research (up to $20,000)

We also offer paid research assistantships to select students.

 

Academic Prerequisites

M.Sc. applicants:

• 4-year undergraduate degree with an overall average of 75%.
• All students must also have sound math skills. See the Department’s website for a self-assessment of essential mathematics background.

Ph.D. Applicants:

• Master’s degree in epidemiology or a related discipline.
• First-class academic standing (80%).
• Demonstrated research competency, usually through a research based thesis.

Other Requirements

Ph.D. Applicants:

• Statement of Interest (including area of research and potential supervisor).
• Transcripts and CV.
• Applicants with non-thesis based masters training may include published, in-press or under review research papers as documentation of academic research experience.

Test Requirements

For international students if applicable either a TOEFL score of 600 paper based or TOEFL iBT minimum scores of: writing (24/30); speaking (22/30); reading (22/30); listening (20/30), for a total of 88/120. Applicants must have the minimum score in each test as well as the minimum overall score.

All applicants whose degrees are from a non-Canadian University must submit GRE scores.