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It is an exciting time to be an epidemiologist!

Now more than ever, highly trained public health professionals are relied upon to confront complex health concerns involving the study and control of factors leading to disease, and epidemiologists are often at the leading edge of these efforts. The field of epidemiology is continually evolving as research, training and prevention activities are initiated in response to disease outbreaks, interest in healthy aging and chronic disease treatment, bioterrorism threats, natural disasters, and demands for injury control and safer environments, among other issues.

The Graduate School of Public Health's Department of Epidemiology equips our students with the tools to become tomorrow's public health leaders through engaging curriculum, mentorship, and state of the art research opportunities in a location recognized as an international hub for health care innovation and practice - the city of Pittsburgh.

We encourage you to join our growing community of public health detectives and invite you to explore how our graduate programs can help you launch a successful public health career.


The Department of Epidemiology at the Graduate School of Public Health has a central theme "Teaching and Prevention through Quality Research," and is thus heavily involved in both research and prevention activities which are incorporated into the teaching experience to provide a practical and clinically relevant educational experience. The department has over 60 primary faculty, 90 secondary and adjunct faculty and over 170 students. In FY 2009, we received approximately $30 million in direct research funds.

We offer two master's degree programs (MPH or MS) and two doctoral degree programs (PhD or DrPH). Three groups of students are particularly encouraged to apply:

  • Individuals with a variety of prior health related professional degrees (e.g., physicians, veterinarians, dentists, nurses) who wish to learn more about epidemiological methods and research to enhance their current health professional activities or help them expand into a greater research or teaching role.
  • Those without a formal health professional training who wish to pursue epidemiology as a first career and pursue a PhD.
  • Students straight from a BSc/BA who wish to enter a 45 credit MPH program.

The major areas of concentration within the department are cardiovascular/diabetes (chronic disease), cancer, women's health, psychiatric, aging, injury, environmental, genetic epidemiology, telecommunications, infectious diseases, and reproductive, perinatal and pediatric epidemiology. Students generally take a series of core courses in epidemiology and then specialize in one of these areas. Faculty in each of these specific areas have major research and/or community service programs that provide excellent facilities for student research and field training.

The Department of Epidemiology is also host to three major centers. The Center for Aging and Population Health is a central focus for prevention of age-related disabilities. The Center for Healthy Aging (funded by the CDC) is also out in the community and evaluating methods to improve the health of the elderly population by focusing attention on 10 goals. The third center, the Epidemiology Data Center, coordinates a large number of multi-center clinical trials and registries, and is a focus of expertise in data management and analysis. The department also houses the Global Health Network and its innovative Supercourse. This resource involves the availability of over 1000 lectures concerning public health via the internet, and is a leading example of international collaboration and education.