Epidemiology can cover a wide range of issues, from unintentional injuries to psychosocial stress. Here are a few areas in which Columbia Mailman faculty and students work:.
In this concentration, infectious disease epidemiologists work to detect pathogens or viruses, understand their development and spread, and devise effective interventions for their prevention and control. Chronic Disease Epidemiology Chronic disease epidemiologists battle day-to-day chronic conditions such as cancers, diabetes, obesity, and more. Epidemiologists in this fieldwork to research the origins, treatment, and health outcomes of these diseases in the fight towards prevention.
This includes physical factors like pollution or housing, as well as social factors like stress and nutrition. Environmental epidemiologists work to understand how different environments may result in physical or neurological outcomes, ranging from psychiatric to cardiovascular disorders.
Violence and Injury Epidemiology This epidemiological focus aims to address unintentional and intentional injuries across a lifespan. For example, epidemiologists in this field might focus their research on car accidents and work to identify the associated risk factors. Epidemiology centers around the idea that disease and illness do not exist randomly or in a bubble.
Epidemiologists conduct research to establish the factors that lead to public health issues, the appropriate responses, interventions, and solutions. By using research—from the field and in the lab—and statistical analysis, epidemiologists can track disease and predict its future outcomes.
In the case of COVID, this analysis requires heavy data surveillance, collection, and interpretation. Due to the scale and threat of the coronavirus pandemic, testing centers, and healthcare systems are required to report all related data, providing epidemiologists with a wealth of information upon which to base their studies.
With this information, epidemiologists will track data including :. Using this data and more, epidemiologists create models that help predict the spread of the disease in the future—including where and when the spread may occur. They may also be able to discern the most vulnerable populations likely to contract a disease and provide recommendations for intervention. That might then lead them to probe more deeply about other factors that might protect certain individuals within that group from the disease.
How strong is the association between event A and outcome B? Does A always occur before B? Does B always follow A? If A is altered in some way, is B altered too, and to the same degree?
The more researchers can say yes to these questions, the closer they get to being able to claim A is the cause of B. These criteria for causation should give you an idea why epidemiological studies are so difficult to carry out.
For example, epidemiological studies can be observational or experimental, retrospective or prospective. Experimental studies include randomized controlled trials; observational studies include cross-sectional studies, cohort studies and case-control studies. Epidemiological studies are important. What public health problems or events are investigated? What public health problems or events are investigated Environmental exposures Lead and heavy metals Air pollutants and other asthma triggers Infectious diseases Foodborne illness Influenza and pneumonia Injuries Increased homicides in a community National surge in domestic violence Non-infectious diseases Localized or widespread rise in a particular type of cancer Increase in a major birth defect Natural disasters Hurricanes Katrina and Rita Haiti earthquake Terrorism World Trade Center Anthrax release Related Links.
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