Diversity and Inclusion in the Epidemiology Workforce

The American Journal of Epidemiology and Social Epidemiology: Past and Future

Historically, the American Journal of Epidemiology (AJE) has played an important role in the development of social epidemiology as a field. To mark the centennial of the Journal, we invited commentaries from 3 sets of authors in which we asked them to reflect on the role of the AJE in advancing our understanding of the social determinants of population health and health disparities. Drs. Lisa Berkman, Mauricio Avendano, and Emilie Courtin discuss the promises and pitfalls of using experimental data (from both randomized trials and natural policy experiments) to interrogate the causal connection between social determinants and population health outcomes. Drs. Julie Palmer, Yvette Crozier, and Lynn Rosenberg look back on the first 25 years of the Black Women's Health Study and the contributions of that study to our understanding of racial disparities in health. Drs. Luisa Borrell and Natalie Crawford review the AJE's contributions to the definition and use of race and ethnicity in epidemiologic research and make recommendations for strengthening diversity and inclusion in the profession. A common thread that emerges across the invited essays is the AJE's commitment to publishing articles that engage in critical self-reflection of the discipline.

What Has the Pandemic Revealed about the Shortcomings of Modern Epidemiology? What Can We Fix or Do Better?

In this commentary, we discuss themes that emerged from our symposium about what modern epidemiology as a science may learn from the COVID-19 pandemic. We reflect on the successes and limitations of this discipline from multiple perspectives, including from junior and senior epidemiologists and scientists on the front lines of generating evidence for the COVID-19 pandemic response in Wuhan, China, to Ontario, Canada. These themes include the role of the traditional scientific process in a public health emergency; epidemiologic methods and data that are critical for an effective pandemic response; the interventions that epidemiologists recommended and interventions that we may explore in the future; inequitable impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic contrasted with homogeneity in the epidemiologist workforce; effective and honest communication of uncertainty; trust and collaboration; and the extent to which these themes are currently reflected in our training programs and discipline. We look forward to insights from field epidemiologists directly involved in the ongoing response to the COVID-19 pandemic and further reflection from epidemiologists throughout our discipline.