By Stephen Kimmel, M.D.
The department of epidemiology within the College of Public Health and Health Professions makes scientific discoveries and educates others so that we improve the health of the public. It is useful to break down this statement into its individual components to better understand what we do.
The purpose of making scientific discoveries is to create generalizable knowledge across the spectrum of epidemiology research, including methods, incidence, causality, association, prediction, treatments and comparative effectiveness. We refer to education broadly, including educating each other and, most importantly, educating our students. But we also educate others, including collaborators, community members, patients, clinicians and policy makers. Improving the health of the public is also all-inclusive and includes the world more generally, and communities, health care systems and individuals more specifically.
To do this, we practice what is referred to as consequential epidemiology. Consequential epidemiology focuses research efforts on generating knowledge that will directly improve health outcomes. While we also perform cutting edge methodology research, we keep our focus on how such work will ultimately improve health.
Over the past year, we have made great strides in our mission. A few examples include:
- Our faculty have garnered almost $20 million in research funding to fuel our ability to make new discoveries; have published 156 journal articles, many in top tier journals; and have given 65 research presentation at national and international meetings.
- Our students have presented their research at dozens of national and international conferences, including, as just a few examples: the Society for Epidemiology Research, the American Public Health Association annual meeting, the American Medical Informatics Association annual symposium, the IEEE International Conference on Healthcare Informatics, the American Heart Association scientific sessions, the Research Society on Alcohol, the Association for Clinical and Translational Science, the Society for Pediatric and Perinatal Epidemiologic Research, and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence.
- We have completed a full remapping of our Ph.D. courses to ensure that our students receive the breadth and depth of training needed to become the highest quality epidemiologists.
- Dr. Yan Wang has launched a new program in digital epidemiology that will leverage innovative methods of collecting digital or electronic data, such as health records and individual monitoring of transdermal alcohol levels, to address previously unanswerable questions.
- Our department now has perhaps one of the largest group of AI epidemiology faculty in the country who are performing research that spans the development of methods from causal AI to understanding antibiotic resistance to phenotyping different types of lung disease.
- UF HealthStreet continues to be a leader in community-based research and service. For example, overall they have conducted 4,500 events nationally, given more than 12,000 COVID vaccinations and almost 2,000 other immunizations, and conducted more than 27,000 surveys of perception related to community health concerns. They recently began a partnership with Bread of the Mighty and are an official food distribution center for Alachua County.
These are but a few examples of the hard work and dedication of our faculty, students, and staff. We look forward to continuing to work to improve the health of the public.
Stephen Kimmel, M.D., is a dean’s professor and chair of the department of epidemiology.