“What diseases do epidemiologists focus on?”
I am really wanting to become an epidemiologist as I love science. What diseases do epidemiologists focus on?
2 Answers
Epidemiology is a broad field and individuals can focus on many things - from health issues such as cigarettes and lung cancer (epidemiologists showed us that cigarettes are a cause of lung cancer) to how HIV is transmitted (in the beginning some people thought that it could not be spread to women but epidemiologist showed that it can), to how to use vaccines, how many infectious diseases are spread.
Take Rocky Mtn Spotted fever. When this first emerged in the Bitteroot Valley in western Montana, many people thought this often fatal disease came from drinking water from melting mountain snow. But epidemiology work showed that it came from ticks, and that the ticks spread through Mt Goats, a favorite host for the ticks.
We need good epidemiologists, so if you are interested, go for it. It will be helpful if have mathematics skills, and also persistence as solving epidemiology problems can be very difficult to solve. But lots of fun, too.
G Dickinson
Take Rocky Mtn Spotted fever. When this first emerged in the Bitteroot Valley in western Montana, many people thought this often fatal disease came from drinking water from melting mountain snow. But epidemiology work showed that it came from ticks, and that the ticks spread through Mt Goats, a favorite host for the ticks.
We need good epidemiologists, so if you are interested, go for it. It will be helpful if have mathematics skills, and also persistence as solving epidemiology problems can be very difficult to solve. But lots of fun, too.
G Dickinson
Epidemiologists are public health professionals who investigate patterns and causes of disease and injury in humans. They seek to reduce the risk and occurrence of negative health outcomes through research, community education and health policy
