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The State of the
Epidemiology Job Market |
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Author: Madeline Roberts, PhD, MPH In recent months at EpiMonitor we have seen unprecedented levels of open university faculty positions. Some of the university hiring posts include job openings for 10-15 employees at one institution alone. Why is this? This month we are conducting a salary survey in an effort to better understand what some of our readers may be looking for in terms of jobs, including compensation. We also started digging into the literature. This is what we’ve found. The Department of Labor statistics reports that job prospects for epidemiologists are slated to grow 26% from 2021 to 2023, much faster than average for all occupations. In fact, an average of 800 epidemiology openings are projected each year this decade, many of which are attributable to current epidemiologists retiring or moving to other occupations. Which brings us to the exodus. State and local health departments were gladiators during the pandemic. And in the aftermath, it’s overwhelmingly evident that COVID-19 had a profound impact on this sector of the public health workforce in particular. A study found that by 2021, 49% of all state and local public health workers staff had left their posts. Among those age 35 and younger, a full 74% left by 2021 (compared with 43% who had been considering leaving in 2017). From 2017 to 2021, turnover was highest among those with the shortest tenure (5 years or less). For these younger workers, pay was the number one impetus for considering job separation. It would seem that, in terms of pay, government positions at the state and local levels are struggling and failing to compete. Other factors contributing to job separation included job-related stress, burnout, and most unfortunately, public hostility toward public health workers. The hiring and employment picture at universities differed in some, though not all, ways. The advent of Covid-19 resulted in hiring freezes at many universities, followed by a seemingly dramatic hiring uptick between 2021 to 2022. When considered together, the 2021-2022 hiring increase may be viewed as simply a counterbalance to the hiring freeze from the previous year. Together, the result is an approximate return to pre-pandemic hiring. Tenure track positions overall have decreased. Drilling down into the data, however, we see an uneven playing field, and a growing job market for assistant professors in STEM and health sciences. Both within and outside of academia, the job search can be challenging and non-linear. One highly detailed, data-driven report outlined an abysmal hiring process (labyrinth?) to which even highly qualified and specialized PhD holders are subject. And what about pay among public health physicians compared to other physician specialties? Data from a 2022 Medscape report showed clinician public health job satisfaction among the highest of all specialists (second only to plastic surgeons), but compensation the lowest. Even among those with the highest levels of credentials, public health pay is less than compelling compared with other fields. Those of us who entered, and have remained in, public health most likely did not do so primarily for the money.
With the aforementioned growth of the epidemiology field, universities may currently have the two-fold aim of seeking both to fill positions needed during the pandemic, as well as increase staffing to meet growing needs. The number of undergraduates completing public health degrees has increased upward of 1,100% between 2001 and 2020. An undergraduate degree in public health has now eclipsed a master’s degree in public health as the most popular public health degree. The field of public health is in a rare and raw moment as we continue to collect ourselves in the wake of the pandemic, while also aiming to prepare for future pandemics, knowing that many public health workers have left the field. Our field is recalibrating post-pandemic, and we know that the need for public health has never been greater. ■
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