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.