Epidemiologists are health researchers or scientific detectives who look at the big picture—not individual cases. They look at epidemics, which are large outbreaks of disease or illness, and try to find out the cause of the outbreak. They also look at how diseases can be prevented. It was epidemiological research that first proved smoking was associated with increased risk of cancer and many other diseases.
Epidemiologists solve a lot of their cases by looking for risk factors—the things that make a disease more likely to develop. To uncover risk factors, they gather statistical data about different groups of people and compare the sets of data to see what the similarities and differences are. For example, epidemiologists discovered that smoking was associated with lung cancer by comparing people who had lung cancer with people who didn’t. They found that the people with lung cancer were more likely to have smoked than those who did not have it.
There are a wide range of diseases and health issues that epidemiologists commonly deal with, including alcohol and drug abuse, poor mental health, and virus outbreaks. In addition to considering scientific and medical factors, they may also look at social, environmental, and economic issues when they do their research. For instance, if they found that many of the people in a small town were getting cancer, they would probably try to find out if there was something in the environment that was contributing to the risk of getting the disease.
Although epidemiologists are not always trained as medical doctors, they undergo extensive education in the health sciences. They are also well-trained in statistics.
NOC Code: 2161