Prospective trainees interested in analyzing data on human injury and illness complete a Masters in Public Health/Epidemiology with a concentration in occupational epidemiology. They learn how to analyze the relationship between workplace exposures and resulting health effects.
Occupational epidemiology has often been caught in the middle of contentious policy debates. Why does that happen? Are there certain issues that arise repeatedly? It is useful to understand both the contributions and limitations of data analysis to address these challenges. Similarly, surveillance programs can be informative for occupational health hazard identification, priority-setting, and prevention, as long as they are interpreted appropriately.
There is a growing emphasis in the occupational health field on formal evaluation of the effectiveness of control technologies and other workplace interventions, and occupational epidemiologists need to know how to design studies to evaluate these. One example of the growing need for such skills is the NIOSH Total Worker Health® Program, which calls for examination of the opportunities, limitations, health benefits, and cost-effectiveness of integrating OSH programs with other workplace efforts to improve worker well-being.