Some people pursue public health careers because they want to help people with a specific disease or have a real impact on diseases that affect the health of many people. For example, they may want to help prevent diabetes because their father suffered from the effects of it. Or, perhaps they know that heart disease is one of the leading causes of death in this country, so they want to evaluate programs that reduce the prevalence of it.
Some schools of public health or programs are known for focusing on particular public health issues. One way to find the right training program for you is to find the ones that focus on the public health issues about which you are passionate. These programs may have courses, research, service, practice and other opportunities specific to your topics.
Academic journal articles are one way to find experts and possibly programs that focus on specific public health issues. The authors of those articles have some interest or expertise in the published topic, and the articles will tell you where the authors were employed when they conducted the work in the journal. Sometimes the authors’ employers are universities or other training institutions that focus on that topic. And if not, you know that at least one person in that organization has (had) an interest similar to yours.
For example, if you are interested in eliminating tuberculosis (and diabetes) and using epidemiology to do it, browse the International Journal of Epidemiology.
Abstract copied from the journal’s website:
Diabetes mellitus and tuberculosis in countries with high tuberculosis burdens: individual risks and social determinants
–Author Affiliations
1Department of Medicine, Stanford Health Policy, CHP/PCOR, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA, USA, 2Center for Infectious Disease Epidemiologic Research, Mailman School of Public Health, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA, 3Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA, 4Division of Global Health Equity, Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Boston, MA, USA and 5Infectious Disease Unit, Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston, MA, USA
- ↵*Corresponding author. Stanford Health Policy, CHP/PCOR, Stanford Medical School, 117 Encina Commons, Stanford, CA 94305-6019, USA. E-mail:[email protected]
- Accepted November 8, 2010.
Background A growing body of evidence supports the role of type 2 diabetes as an individual-level risk factor for tuberculosis (TB), though evidence from developing countries with the highest TB burdens is lacking. In developing countries, TB is most common among the poor, in whom diabetes may be less common. We assessed the relationship between individual-level risk, social determinants and population health in these settings.
Methods We performed individual-level analyses using the World Health Survey (n = 124 607; 46 countries). We estimated the relationship between TB and diabetes, adjusting for gender, age, body mass index, education, housing quality, crowding and health insurance. We also performed a longitudinal country-level analysis using data on per-capita gross domestic product and TB prevalence and incidence and diabetes prevalence for 1990–95 and 2003–04 (163 countries) to estimate the relationship between increasing diabetes prevalence and TB, identifying countries at risk for disease interactions.
Results In lower income countries, individuals with diabetes are more likely than non-diabetics to have TB [univariable odds ratio (OR): 2.39; 95% confidence interval (CI): 1.84–3.10; multivariable OR: 1.81; 95% CI: 1.37–2.39]. Increases in TB prevalence and incidence over time were more likely to occur when diabetes prevalence also increased (OR: 4.7; 95% CI: 1.0–22.5; OR: 8.6; 95% CI: 1.9–40.4). Large populations, prevalent TB and projected increases in diabetes make countries like India, Peru and the Russia Federation areas of particular concern.
Conclusions Given the association between diabetes and TB and projected increases in diabetes worldwide, multi-disease health policies should be considered.
