The Math of Vaccine Science
Summer 2023
Syllabus - Subject to Change
IPAK-EDU
Instructors; C. Stein, J. Lyons-Weiler
In this class, students will be introduced to the mathematical operations conducted in the study of vaccine safety and efficacy.
1. Simple operations in Excel
2. Plotting results in Excel
3. OR - Odds Ratios
4. RR - Relative Risk
5. Absolute Risk - Absolute Risk
6. Incidence Rate Ratio (IRR)
7. Assessing "significance" - p-values - Association Tests
8. Confidence Intervals - Calculating CIs in Excel (Data CIs vs. Distributional CIs)
9. Outcomes - 1
Neutralizing Ab response, Ab response, B-cell and T-cell response
10. Hospitalization and Deaths - 2
11. Vaccine Efficacy
12. Statistical Power Curves
13. Definition of Cases
Symptomatic Cases - Indeterminate or mixed diagnosis
Medical Cases - Determine (definitive diagnoses)
Molecular Cases - RT-PCR/Antigen + vs -
Calculating Diagnostic Accuracy: TP, TN, FP, FN, PPV, NPV, Accuracy, ROC Curves
15. Confounding and what to do about it
16. Stratified Analysis: Interpreting subgroup analyses
17. Student Data Challenge 1
We will show examples in epidemiology where each was used appropriately, and then examples in vaccinology where they have been misapplied or misinterpreted.