The roles of epidemiology in public health, and the steps to solving a health problem
Since the 1980s, public health has recognized six core jobs that make up the work of epidemiology. A single epidemiologist might do all six over the course of a career, sometimes all six in the same investigation.
Continuously watching disease patterns so problems are caught early. (Section 6!)
Going out (literally, "shoe leather") to find cases and clues during an outbreak.
Running rigorous studies (like case-control or cohort studies) to test a hypothesis.
Checking whether a program or intervention is actually working as intended.
Teaming up with labs, doctors, and other agencies: field epi is a team sport.
Turning evidence into recommendations, regulations, and guidelines.
No matter which of these six roles they're playing, every epidemiologist follows the same basic logic when solving a health problem, sometimes called the epidemiologic approach:
Find and count the cases or health events, describing them by time, place, and person.
Divide the number of cases by the size of the population at risk to calculate a rate.
Compare that rate over time, or against another group, to see if it's really unusual.
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