Teaching epidemiology in Australia and New Zealand : what are the core and advanced concepts for epidemiological practitioners and researchers?

In June 2014, an invited group of experienced teachers of epidemiology from universities in New Zealand and Australia met for two days to talk about teaching epidemiology at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels. This arose out of informal discussions that identified a series of emerging challenges we faced in teaching epidemiology. First, there are practical issues. We are increasingly teaching students who are highly heterogeneous in ability, backgrounds, and professional needs in relation to epidemiological knowledge; and in some cases it is not clear that our teaching of epidemiology meets the professional practice requirements of current students. Second, this heterogeneity combined with limited numbers of students make it difficult to provide classes to suit their diverse needs. For example, numbers of students are generally too small to sustain courses in advanced or specialist epidemiology methods. Third, there is a lack of research on the best pedagogical approaches to teaching epidemiology, and a lack of supporting resources for teachers of epidemiology. Fourth, given numerous recent methodological, technological and conceptual advances in epidemiology, epidemiology teachers are facing challenges about how and when to incorporate these advances, and how to keep up with these concepts and methods.