Ask an Epidemiologist

Advice on how to become a critical consumer of health research

Briana Mezuk Ph.D.

Point, Counterpoint, and COVID

How can public debate strengthen community ties during the pandemic crisis?

What Might Have Been: Grief and Gratitude in a Pandemic

Collective grief for collective gain? Making peace with what might have been during the pandemic.

An Epidemiologist Answers COVID-19 FAQs

Questions about coronavirus? You've come to the right place.

The Revolution Will Not Be Televised

Looking for some colorful graphical projections of when the pandemic will peak? Keep waiting. Looking for some reflective late-night reassurance? Come on in.

Social Distance and Mental Health in a Pandemic

Welcome to the new normal: Scrubbing up, staying home, and not panicking.

4 True, but Unreported, Headlines About the Coronavirus

Is it time to convert your basement into the survivalist cave of your dreams? I'm glad you asked.

How I Learned to Manage my Worry About the Coronavirus

Epidemiology is #trending with coronavirus in the news, but how can you build your quantitative reasoning skills in a more measured way? I’m glad you asked.

“Deaths of Despair” Meets “Black Lives Matter”

Beauty isn’t the only thing that lies in the eye of the beholder. How emphasis and interpretation of data on declines in life expectancy are distracting us from bigger issues.

What Can Twins Teach Us About How Stress Impacts Health?

We can learn more than we bargained for from “natural experiments.”

Considering a Career in Public Mental Health?

What a career in public mental health looks like—and the training you need to get there.

Should have brought that umbrella...

What Do Weather Forecasts and Health Studies Have in Common?

What do meteorologists and epidemiologists have in common, other than we both love showing our data on maps? I’m glad you asked.

To Prevent Suicide, Do We Need to Reinvent the Wheel?

Seat belts are one of the most effective life-saving devices ever created. What is its equivalent for suicide prevention?

Are You One in a Million?

Precision medicine is the future, but to understand its potential—and its limitations—we should look to the past.

Red pill or blue pill?

Making Health Decisions in the Face of Uncertainty

Even well-designed studies can come to ambiguous conclusions. So how can you make smart decisions about your health? I’m glad you asked.

How to Assess the Quality of Health Research

Not all studies are created equal. But how can you tell a well-designed study from a poorly designed one?