Now, what exactly is an applied epidemiologist, and why are they needed? In the late 90s- early 2000's there were a series of articles in AJPH, AJE, JECH, and IJE dedicated to answering these questions. I'll focus on Stephen Thacker's review.

He states, “The applied epidemiologist is by definition an activist, moving rapidly from findings to policy, putting epi knowledge to good use. The 21st century epi must do all these things while maintaining a foundation of high-quality epi research and practice.”
Susser warns the field of what he considers “the black box paradigm… the current international focus on risk factor epidemiology.” He advocates for expanding our academic training to include socializing epis to “keep the improvement of the public’s health as a primary value”
Morabia argued that epidemiology has historically found its balance in the tension between the search for causal relations and the improvement of public health; overemphasis on either perspective puts epidemiology at risk of losing its value.
How does this play out in real life? I’ve been an applied epi for 13 years, working mainly in local, state, and federal health agencies. My work has focused on conducting cool analysis that lead to policy or systemic change.
A quick example from my time as Chief MCH epi for a state, using Medicaid data, I noticed that postpartum people weren’t returning for their six week check-up. Using PRAMS data I noticed that people with extremely short birth intervals stated the pregnancies were missed timed.
Using family planning data I noticed that postpartum people made appointments for LARCs, but weren’t coming in to get them placed. Knowing state Medicaid policy, I knew that postpartum people were only insured 60 days post delivery.
Empirical evidence tells me that mistimed pregnancies have health consequences for both baby and mom, and that short birth intervals are a risk factor for maternal mortality. What can I do? Before I tell you that, are you impressed at all the data I can easily get my hands on?
Back to what can I do- being a #govepi also means knowing health policy. At the time, state Medicaid policy didn’t allow for LARC placement at time of delivery, order could be made, and placement occur at 6 week follow-up. An appointment that on average 60% of people missed.
With all my data in hand, I requested Medicaid change their rules. Medicaid requested cost benefit analysis and a policy analyses, which I conducted. Ultimately leading to me helping to write policy allowing for no cost family planning services at any point during care.

More from Education

Chicago Public Schools are supposed to open for some special needs and pre-K students Monday

The Chicago Teachers Union is now threatening to refuse to return to work in person.

https://t.co/MgDgNe6REj


Meanwhile
https://t.co/FIij8J3r7z

Dr. Fauci: "The default position should be to try as best as possible within reason to keep the children in school or to get them back to school [...] if you look at the data the spread among children and from children is not really big at


UNICEF: "Data from 191 countries shows no consistent link between reopening schools and increased rates of coronavirus
Last month I presented seven sentences in seven different languages, all written in a form of the Chinese-character script. The challenge was to identify the languages and, if possible, provide a


Here again are those seven sentences:

1) 他的剑从船上掉到河里去
2) 於世𡗉番𧡊哭唭𢆥尼歲㐌外四𨑮
3) 入良沙寢矣見昆腳烏伊四是良羅
4) 佢而家喺邊喥呀
5) 夜久毛多都伊豆毛夜幣賀岐都麻碁微爾夜幣賀岐都久流曾能夜幣賀岐袁
6) 其劍自舟中墜於水
7) 今天愛晚特語兔吃二魚佛午飯

Six of those seven sentences are historically attested. One is not: I invented #7. I’m going to dive into an exploration of that seventh sentence in today’s thread.

Sentence #7 is an English-language sentence written sinographically — that is, using graphs that originate in the Chinese script. I didn’t do this for fun (even though it is fun), or as a proposal for a new way to write


I did it as a thought experiment. Why? Because thinking about how the modern Chinese script might be adapted to write modern English can give us valuable insights into historical instances of script borrowing, like those that took place centuries ago in Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
When the university starts sending out teaching evaluation reminders, I tell all my classes about bias in teaching evals, with links to the evidence. Here's a version of the email I send, in case anyone else wants to poach from it.

1/16


When I say "anyone": needless to say, the people who are benefitting from the bias (like me) are the ones who should helping to correct it. Men in math, this is your job! Of course, it should also be dealt with at the institutional level, not just ad hoc.
OK, on to my email:
2/16

"You may have received automated reminders about course evals this fall. I encourage you to fill the evals out. I'd be particularly grateful for written feedback about what worked for you in the class, what was difficult, & how you ultimately spent your time for this class.

3/16

However, I don't feel comfortable just sending you an email saying: "please take the time to evaluate me". I do think student evaluations of teachers can be valuable: I have made changes to my teaching style as a direct result of comments from student teaching evaluations.
4/16

But teaching evaluations have a weakness: they are not an unbiased estimator of teaching quality. There is strong evidence that teaching evals tend to favour men over women, and that teaching evals tend to favour white instructors over non-white instructors.
5/16

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