About My Job: The Epidemiologist

by Conor Friedersdorf

The reader writes:

As an epidemiology doctoral student, I'm constantly amazed by the ways in which people misunderstand, misconstrue, and overestimate the available evidence on health-related topics. Few things touch as many aspects of our lives as intimately as health, and yet we consistently see high percentages of individuals making use of therapies with little or no value, sometimes at great expense to both their health and their pocketbooks. We have around 300 years...