Informações principais
Sobre o conteúdo
Not so long ago, it was almost guaranteed that you would die of an infectious disease. In fact, had you been born just 150 years ago, your chances of dying of an infectious disease before you've reached the tender age of 5 would have been extremely high. Since then, science has come a long way in understanding infectious diseases - what they are, how they spread, and how they can be prevented. But diseases like HIV/AIDS, Malaria, Tuberculosis, or the flu are still major killers worldwide, and novel emerging diseases are a constant threat to public health. In addition, the bugs are evolving. Antibiotics, our most potent weapon against bacterial infections, are losing their power because the bacteria are becoming resistant. In this course, we'll explore the major themes of infectious diseases dynamics. After we’ve covered the basics, we'll be looking at the dynamics of the flu, and why we're worried about flu pandemics. We'll be looking at the dynamics of childhood diseases such as measles and whooping cough, which were once considered almost eradicated, but are now making a comeback. We'll explore Malaria, and use it as a case study of the evolution of drug resistance. We'll even be looking at social networks - how diseases can spread from you to your friends to your friends' friends, and so on. And of course we’ll be talking about vaccination too. We’ll also be talking about how mobile phones, social media and crowdsourcing are revolutionizing disease surveillance, giving rise to a new field of digital epidemiology. And yes, we will be talking about Zombies - not human zombies, but zombie ants whose brains are hijacked by an infectious fungus. We're looking forward to having you join us for an exciting course!
Programa de estudos
- Week 1 - Course Introduction
Welcome to Epidemics: the Dynamics of Infectious Diseases. This course will teach you about the variety of parasitic organisms that infect humans, animals, and plants, how these parasites spread through populations, and the various methods that we employ to c... - Week 1 - Pathogens
In the first module, you will learn about the organisms that can infect us and make us sick: pathogens. We will first take a look at the various types of pathogens that exist, and then learn about what it means to be infectious, and what it means to cause dise... - Week 2 - Hosts
The second module of the course covers host factors that determine the outcome of infection. We will first focus on host immunity and present both the general immune capabilities—the innate immune response—that are encoded in our genes and that provide the ini... - Week 3 - Basics of Ecology
The third module of the course covers ecological factors that influence the dynamic patterns of infectious disease. We will discuss the conditions under which a pathogen can drive its host to extinction. We will look at how the demography of the host may allow... - Week 4 - Epidemiology
Where humans live and how they are connected to each other, have strong effects on how infectious diseases can spread. In this module, you will learn about some of the related key concepts of epidemiology. After looking at some fascinating history, we’ll learn... - Week 5 - Vaccination
In module 5 of the course, you will learn about vaccination, one of the most common approaches to the prevention of epidemics. We'll first put vaccination in the context of the many types of public health interventions that that can be used to prevent or treat... - Week 6 - Control Mechanisms
In module 6 of the course, you will learn about mechanisms involved in controlling epidemics. In these lectures, we will discuss what control mechanisms are trying to do, such as breaking the chain of transmission, and many ways by which animals and humans att... - Week 7 - Emergence
In module 7 of the course, we’ll look at so-called emerging infectious diseases. These are diseases that are causing new problems. They include infectious agents that are new to humanity, but also infectious agents that were once controlled and are now returni... - Week 8 - Global Health
In this final module we explore the global context of epidemics. The world is rapidly changing with the global population increasing and the speed of travel and extent of globalization piling on the pressure of infectious diseases. In this week we set out firs... - Week 8 - Ask Us Anything Videos
The videos accessible in this module are responses to questions that have been posed in previous sessions of this course. We invite you to look around here as an additional resource to answer questions you might have yourself or explore topics that pique your ...
Instrutores
Dr. Peter Hudson
Willaman Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. David P. Hughes
Assistant Professor of Entomology and Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Matthew Ferrari
Assistant Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Andrew Read
Alumni Professor in the Biological Sciences, and Professor of Entomology
Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics
Dr. Marcel Salathé
Assistant Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Mary L. Poss
Professor of Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Ottar N. Bjornstad
Professor of Entomology and Biology
Department of Biology
Dr. Rachel A. Smith
Associate Professor
Department of Communication Arts & Sciences and Human Development & Family Studies
Criador do conteúdo
Plataforma
A Coursera é uma empresa digital que oferece um curso on-line massivo e aberto, fundado pelos professores de computação Andrew Ng e Daphne Koller Stanford University, localizado em Mountain View, Califórnia.
O Coursera trabalha com as melhores universidades e organizações para disponibilizar alguns dos seus cursos on-line e oferece cursos em várias disciplinas, incluindo: física, engenharia, humanidades, medicina, biologia, ciências sociais, matemática, negócios, ciência da computação, marketing digital, ciência de dados. e outros assuntos.Cours
