• Question: what do you do as a senior epidemiologist

    Asked by a b i to Kevin on 9 Jun 2017.
    • Photo: Kevin Pollock

      Kevin Pollock answered on 9 Jun 2017:

      I work in the Immunisation team where we regularly deal with outbreaks of disease such as meningitis and other vaccine preventable diseases. I analyse data to show the impact of vaccines in how they are not only reducing infectious diseases but may also be able to reduce antimicrobial resistance, a massive public health issue. I write papers for scientific journals, give lectures to University and school students and get to travel internationally giving talks on the Scottish vaccine programme.

Comments

  • christldonnelly commented on :

    There are different sorts of epidemiologists. Some epidemiologists are part of outbreak investigation teams. They help investigate new clusters of disease – asking people where they have been, what they have been eating, have they had contact with particular types of animals. The goal is to find the source of an outbreak and to identify how (if at all) the disease is spreading from person to person. Other epidemiologists (including me) work on datasets (often they are tables of data – imagine an Excel spreadsheet where each row is a patient and each column is a variable – age, gender, does the person have a symptom such as a cough, did they die of their disease, what day did they first get sick, etc). I analyse these sorts of data to understand (and help others understand) overall patterns in the data. What are the trends? Are control measures helping? (Control measures could include things like – a vaccination campaign or tracing the family and friends of cases to find any that are starting to get sick but haven’t yet gone to a doctor or hospital.) I produce reports and push academic papers about my findings. These tell what I found out and further how I used the data (what statistical methods I used) to draw those conclusions. I also teach undergrads, Masters students and PhD students. And I talk to members of the public – most often school children – about science generally, and infectious disease epidemiology in particular. Today I spoke at the Glasgow Science Festival. I’m on my way home as I type this answer.