<p>I really love my school's BS in Public health....I have to major in it, or I will regret it, but I know that I must have a stronger backround in math/sciences, honestly, I do not like both so much. Both are "doable", but I do not want to major in them, simply because my passion for public helath is much greater. I took ap stats and ap bio, and normal physics and chemistry in HS so I guess I am equipped, but I feel I was a B level student in all of the classes, even when I did my best. I am confused as to how a statistics major can get you into a lab, sure, you know the math, but you know nothing of biology. I like learning about things such as AIDS ..... does this mean I should just do a minor in biology.....or would a minor in stats be ok to? Can anyone explain this? I want to do peace corps related work, but I also want to research and work in a lab or work for the CDC (how does one work for CDC)? Thanks for the help</p>
<p>curleq - IMHO you’re overthinking this. Rare … no, make that VERY RARE … is the Principal Investigating Researcher (PI) who does the research and also does the statistical analysis. The real challenge is in study design … does the study capture the necessary data in the necessary precision to generate valid statistical results. It’s the old “garbage data in, garbage conclusions out.”</p>
<p>I suggest you visit an active research facility, and speak with a researcher or two. Read a few papers generated by the Lab before visiting. (Many Research Labs put recent publications on hallway walls.)</p>
<p>Good luck with your investigations.</p>
<p>Public health covers many, many areas besides just disease outbreaks.</p>
<p>A neighbor works as consultant for the CDC. She has PhD in Public Health and is on faculty at a CA university. She is not epidemiologist, but an expert on clean water/water planning issues in the US. (Her undergrad field-- history and government.)</p>
<p>Her daughter also has a PhD in Public Health from Kings College in London, works for the WHO developing mental healthcare policies and implementation planning. (Her undergrad field-- philosophy and psychology with a minor in math)</p>
<p>A family friend runs the regional state office for public health. She is a MD and among her jobs is tracking disease outbreaks and containing them. (Her undergrad field–biology) She is not an epidemiologist, but she has epidemiologists working for her. Those epidemiologist were the one who determined the cause of the 2006 E. coli in fresh spinach outbreak. None of those epidemiologist did any actual hands-on lab analysis work when studying the the issue–they did statistical modeling.</p>
<p>OP–you have a lot of misconceptions and confusion about what a epidemiologist does and what area of public health you’re interested in.</p>
<p>Try to figure a bit more what exactly you want to be doing. As NewHope suggests, visit an active research lab (perhaps at nearby U or medical center), see if you can shadow at a local public agency or a regional state office. </p>
<p>Once you have clearer ideas of exactly what it is you want to do, then you will see what path you need to pursue.</p>
<p>This is a really good reason to visit your professors and talk with them in some detail about your career interests and possibilities. </p>
<p>I can’t speak for this area of study at all, but what I know is that my coauthors in medicine drive me nuts because they do not do their own analysis but ship it out to a statistician. In my field, that would be unheard of (the PI is the person who conceives of the idea, designs the study and has had many years of PhD level statistics, design and mathematics training to execute the study effectively). What that means for your potential career options I do not know, but I do know its hard to generalize one’s experience outside of one’s specific field or occupation. </p>
<p>So talk to your professors-- if they can not answer your question, they will know who can. Even if you aren’t taking a class with them yet, email them and set up a chance to discuss the possibilities with them.</p>
<p>curleq - IMHO you’re overthinking this. Rare … no, make that VERY RARE … is the Principal Investigating Researcher (PI) who does the research and also does the statistical analysis</p>
<p>This is not true - it’s definitely not VERY rare, and it’s not rare at ALL in quantitative fields like epidemiology. Epidemiologists are expected to know how to do statistical analysis, and even researchers who hire biostatisticians onto their teams should have a basic grasp of statistics. I do statistical consulting and it’s pretty hard to consult when the person I’m trying to explain their results to knows nothing about statistics.</p>
<p>Epidemiology is a mathematical field that uses statistical methods to do research, so anyone who wants to go into epidemiology should be prepared to take lots of math courses. You’ll need at least calculus III, linear algebra, and an undergrad statistics course. If you don’t like math and don’t want to do it, then epidemiology probably isn’t right for you. Epidemiologists typically don’t do too much (if any) lab/bench work; it’s mostly mathematical modeling.</p>
<p>But there are many other fields within public health. You could be a biomedical scientist within public health - you could get a PhD in immunology, virology, biomedical sciences, or something related to that instead of epidemiology. Then you could do something like the Epidemic Intelligence Service and learn how to be an epidemiologist, or you can work in labs with epidemiologists or biostatisticians who will do most of the statistical analysis of your bio samples.</p>
<p>^ juillet - You misunderstood my point. “I did the research and I also did the analysis” leaves open the possibility that an independent analyst might have come to a different conclusion.</p>