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Epi Wit & Wisdom Resources
Readers
Identify Over 50 Subspecialties in Epidemiology
Have you ever heard of forensic
epidemiology? How about cruise epidemiology? These are only two of the
more unusual subspecialties from among more than 50 subspecialties
which have been identified by readers of Epi Monitor.
We reported in July on the
creation of the Society for Pediatric Epidemiology Research and the
proliferation of interest groups in epidemiology made us wonder about
the total number of subspecialities in epidemiology today. We
challenged readers to add to the list of 18 subspecialties that we
could think of, and estimated that there might be as many as 20 terms
commonly used to describe subspecialities in epidemiology. Much to our
surprise, the list more than doubled. However, a new question
arises--what really constitutes a subspecialty in epidemiology?
Additions/Deletions
Some of the terms suggested by
our readers we had heard before but had forgotten to list. These were
added to the list without question. Other terms were new to us and we
are less certain about how frequently they are used or how many
epidemiologists actually work in these areas (e.g., radiologic
epidemiology). Nevertheless, some of these terms were added to the
list because readers stated they were actually employed in these
areas. Other new terms we had never heard and we remain skeptical
about their use. We would like further input from our readers before
including them on our list.
Also, we excluded terms which we
believe do not describe subspecialties but which identify different
types of epidemiology (e.g., descriptive epi, analytical epi,
observational epi, theoretical epi, experimental epi).
Finally, some terms were
suggested which are synonyms for existing terms (e.g., infectious
disease epi and communicable disease epi), or subsets of more general
terms not frequently heard before (e.g., viral disease epi as a subset
of infectious disease epi) and these terms were not counted
separately.
Following is a list of
subspecialties suggested by readers which we remain uncertain about.
Is anyone else willing to assert that one or more of these suggestions
constitutes a subspeciality in epidemiology?
Geographic epi
Developmental epi
Immunologic epi
Canine epi
Feline epi
Historical epi
Surveillance epi
Zoo-otic epi
Anthropologic epi
Chemical epi
Community epi
Published October
1987
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