What are /r/publichealth's favorite Products & Services?

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For SAS, try coming up with simple projects that interest you using Census Data and practice with the very basics and work your way up. Start learning to import delimited files, manipulating datasets using data steps and playing with proc freq and proc print, as these are really the basics you’ll build a lot of your skills off of. Try to aim to build a report of your own with these tools and go from there.

For absolute beginners, I recommend the Little SAS book (https://www.amazon.com/Little-SAS-Book-Primer-Sixth/dp/1642952834). I consider myself pretty fluent in SAS and have done more complex stuff like network analysis and various regression analysis and still keep this book at my desk at all times because it’s really helpful for basic, basic stuff.

As you get more advanced, just start googling your questions and consider registering on sascommunities to ask questions. Everyone there is really welcoming and helpful.

I sat for it last Monday and passed. I used this study guide almost exclusively:
https://www.amazon.com/CBIC-Exam-Secrets-Study-Guide/dp/1516716337/

There's a video series as well that I occasionally referred to; look up Kern Rivers CIC review or something along those lines on YouTube.

The exam is 100 questions, of which 85 are randomly selected for scoring your grade. You have 120 minutes allotted for the test, with an additional 10-15 min before and after for a tutorial and survey, respectively.

It's a good idea to review especially if you don't have a background in epi and/or the sciences. You shouldn't have a problem with your epi and ID knowledge. I'm a RN w/a bio degree and some grad school PH classes under my belt and I did ok; I studied for a few days prior to the test, focusing on the areas that weren't my strongest.

>ALSO - I have not used R for biostats but was looking for an option if I do NOT have access to SPSS (only have at the office)

I thought the Data Science courses on Coursera were taught in R? That's how I learned R. I now have no desire to go back and use SPSS.

An open source version of SPSS is PSPP, it is free to download and use. Especially if you're already proficient in writing SPSS code, it's very similar, although if I remember correctly some of the syntax is a little different. But the functionality is all there.

Also, can you come to my school and do a class talk to all the MPH students who complain about having to learn biostats and try and squeak by on minimal effort without learning anything? I kid, I kid, but it's frustrating at times because of how important and applicable it is to us after graduating.

Here are some groups that are worth checking out:

Biostats Group on LinkedIn has +7k members. There's a lot of support there.

SAS Biostats and Clinical Management on LinkedIn has 5k members.

This is the first textbook I was required to use for my public health classes. http://www.jblearning.com/catalog/9781284089233/

but as others have told you, PH is very, very broad. This is a beginner book.

Here's one for the US healthcare system https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-U-S-Health-Care-System/dp/082610214X

I'd pretty much just do a google scholar search. Stuff like this.

Coursera has a lot of available courses.

But for extra fun, check out this course on vaccines that's taught by Dr. Paul Offit at UPenn.

Hust take a look at what the job postings are asking for. Nearly all I've seen want experience in R, SAS. You can run python in R by installing an interpreter and run SQL queries with the function sqldf(). There are a ton of free resources to learn R and several youtube channels dedicated to it. This book will get you started without having to take a formal class: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01NAJAEN5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_d_asin_title_o00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

I would absolutely go for epi as its a complementary skill set. I'm a mixed methods person and I think there will be much more coming out about that in the coming years.

I was recently recommended this ethnography, where the author eventually did some secondary data analysis to support their ethnographic fieldwork.

There are more conflicts of interest than you can imagine. I'd recommend you read "Sickening" for a glimpse. https://www.amazon.com/Sickening-Pharma-American-Health-Repair/dp/1328957810/ref=m_pd_aw_sbs_sccl_3/141-8130436-1280715?pd_rd_w=Fsg9b&content-id=amzn1.sym.0c279229-4118-4446-82ce-2a5493d1e222&pf_rd_p=0c279229-4118-4446-82ce-2a5493d1e222&am....

The practice exam in the back of the companion guide is very helpful. I used it and the book I am going to link. It's the only two my college recommends and we have only had one or two students not pass.

Planning, Implementing, & Evaluating Health Promotion Programs: A Primer https://www.amazon.com/dp/0134219929/ref=cm_sw_r_apan_glt_i_XVDXW0409HVB3SDBMZWY

Oh man, don't make me defend nicotine use.

Just browsing Google Scholar there are studies on the topic of carcinogenicity of nicotine, but so far, nothing really pans out. It's the aromatic hydrocarbons and particulates that are established carcinogens in tobacco smoke, AFAIK.

Obviously the advantage e-cigs have is that there is no passive smoke. So for that reason alone, it is a harm-reduction strategy.

You might consider taking some courses in the Data Scientist's Toolkit series on Coursera. It's through Johns Hopkins, and may be good prep or a refresher before your classes start. https://www.coursera.org/course/datascitoolbox

Not exactly what you're looking for, but I'm taking two coursera classes:

Epidemics, Pandemics and Outbreaks

Ebola Virus Disease: An Evolving Epidemic

The University of Manchester do an online, distance-learning MPH.

Their entry requirements are a GPA of 3.0 but they take professional experience into account.

If they're unsure about accepting people for the MPH, they sometimes accept people onto lower qualifications (Diploma, Certificate or individual units) and allow them to progress to higher qualifications based on their performance.

They also do Public Health MOOCs on Coursera which might give some impression of the programme.

It's got some flexibility as it's modular and predominantly online, so you can complete it in one to five years and you can arrange it so you can still work full time (if you want or need to).

The admissions address is if you wanted to shoot them an email and ask. It might be worth a look and I personally would recommend the course.

So, reading Dreamland, I was really struck by how multifaceted the opioid crisis is. At least the impression that I got from that book, it seemed like it really started with a perfect storm of pharmaceutical salesmanship, legislation, people not double checking the underlying research, moralization of addiction, a proliferation of unscrupulous pain clinics, and heroin starting to come in from Mexico.

With all those other factors, I'm kinda surprised to see CVS and Walgreens as being places to lay blame. And, reading the comment from kombinacja, it doesn't sound like there's a lot there that they could do differently.

I get them at this store: https://www.sprouts.com/stores/ which has bulk bins: https://www.ecosia.org/images?q=sprouts+bulk+foods

Various other stores in the US have similar bins, such as WinCo and Whole Foods.

SAS University Edition is free. It has a good IDE to work with. I've seen my classmates use SAS UE on mac and pc. The newest edition has issues with selecting text when you open it up in Chrome.

RStudio has Ubuntu download links.

[BostonU Online Learning Module has some SAS and R resources.](sphweb.bumc.bu.edu/otlt/MPH-Modules/Menu/index.html)

What exactly do you need help w/in SAS (ex: importing data, formatting vars, syntax)? You can find some pretty helpful tutorials on YouTube. Not sure what your learning style is but I found this this book pretty helpful.

https://www.amazon.com/Social-Transformation-American-Medicine-Profession/dp/0465093027

This book is amazing!

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I have two recommendations. One I've read, and the other I have on my list to read--but both seem to be what you're looking for.

My recommendation: The Sanitarians: A History of American Public Health by John Duffy. This book begins in colonial America and goes into the 1980s. Its strength is in the historical analysis of the American hygiene movement.

On my reading list: A History of Public Health by George Rosen. Johns Hopkins publishes this and they seem to keep it in print by coming out with an update every few years with some extra content. This was first written in the late 1950s. It starts with a history from Greek and Roman times, and then summarizes various epochs: 500-1500, 1500-1750, 1750-1830, 1830-1875, and 1875-1950.

I recently read <em>Pain and Prejudice</em> by Karen Messing, which is an interesting study about the empathy gap between scientists and the people they study. I initially read it for the framework of workers' health, but it's a fascinating study into how our work as scientists interacts with people. The book came out last September and is a retrospective over the author's whole career but I think it would be a good read for people who are considering PH research.

Also a new IOM report updating our knowledge of indoor environmental exposures that contribute to asthma: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25303775. It's really a confirmation of things we already knew, just reporting on more data that solidifies it. This can be translated towards several fields with regards to prevention and control of exposures that exacerbate asthma as it becomes more and more prevalent.