Welcome to the Division of Epidemiology in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of South Carolina.
What happens to children with diabetes when there isn’t enough food in the household? How can older individuals prevent falls? How can mothers reduce their risk of diabetes in pregnancy? These are some questions that our faculty are seeking to answer.
Epidemiologists design and conduct investigations aimed at improving the health of groups of people by combining knowledge from the social sciences, medicine, biology, the environment, and statistics. Epidemiologic studies provide evidence to inform recommendations for disease prevention, determine optimal treatments, and evaluate the effect of policies. The field is poised to rapidly grow in the future by harnessing developments in genetics, the microbiome, big data, and artificial intelligence to improve health. If you like biology, statistics, and computing, and want to make a difference to the health of large groups of people, epidemiology may be for you.
The Department of Epidemiology has 18 full-time faculty who are passionate about teaching and engaging with students. Students receive rigorous training to design and analyze epidemiologic studies and interpret and report their findings to scientific and public health communities through didactic and practical training. In addition to epidemiologic methods, the curriculum covers applied statistics, data management, and elective courses focused on substantive areas of epidemiology such as nutrition, cardiovascular disease, cancer, clinical trials, maternal and child health, infectious disease, environmental health, and social determinants of health.
Epidemiology is in high demand. Our graduates have taken up positions at top tier universities, the CDC, and the World Health Organization, academia, research, state and federal health departments, hospital systems, pharmaceutical industry, insurance companies, and non-profit organizations.
We offer eight advanced degrees in epidemiology and biostatistics. Each graduate degree has specific application deadlines and requirements.
The study found that the program resulted in significant reductions in inadequate prenatal care, large-for-gestational-age births, and inadequate weight gain during pregnancy as well as positive impacts on breast feeding and public service practices.
Gabriel Benavidez (Epidemiology and Biostatistics), Maggie Carson (Environmental Health Sciences), and Valerie Yelverton (Health Services Policy and Management), are recipients of three of these prestigious honors.
Melissa Nolan, associate professor of epidemiology, has been selected to serve on the Forum on Microbial Threats for the National Academy of Medicine. The forum convenes leaders to discuss critical scientific and policy concerns related to infectious diseases.
Graduate students from across the Arnold School have earned 2022-2023 SPARC Graduate Research Grants from the USC Office of the Vice President for Research to fund individual scholarship initiatives.
Five Arnold School faculty members and three graduate students have been recognized with 2023 Breakthrough Awards. They have been honored with Breakthrough Leadership in Research, Breakthrough Star (Melissa Nolan) and Breakthrough Graduate Scholar (Gabriel Benavidez) Awards.
Arnold School scientists have contributed to new research on how community gardening increases fiber consumption and physical activity while decreasing stress and anxiety.