Reaching Beyond Our Walls
Tomi Akinyemiju, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences. She believes epidemiologists have a “professional and moral imperative” to ensure that medical and policy solutions are equitably applied to all populations. “As epidemiologists, we must always think about the social context,” she said.
We need a lot more emphasis on prevention and health equity.
In terms of prevention, the future of epidemiology is more personalized approaches tailored to each individual’s unique context. We have better tools to identify and address at a granular level what is driving the occurrence of disease.
In terms of risk prediction, the future of epidemiology is leveraging big data and tools like AI and machine learning for complex analyses on millions of data points. This will help us better identify emerging trends and disentangle causes from confounders, putting us ahead of the curve and better prepared to address problems like novel pandemics in the future. It will also allow us to better target interventions so we are recommending and providing the interventions to specific patients or communities based on what they need.
Even when we have interventions that work perfectly, we have to make sure there is equitable access to that knowledge and insight. In the United States, health equity remains a problem. When some people have access to the best care and some don’t, it widens the health gap. The future of epidemiology must consider that health risks are not distributed equally. Certain communities are more exposed to health risks like environmental exposures to toxic waste or are more heavily impacted by climate change or infection, as we saw with COVID-19.
As the major health care provider in Durham, Duke has an obligation to address the health concerns in our backyard. It’s not easy for everyone who lives here to come to Duke for care. We need to reach out beyond our walls and engage those communities.
What Comes Next:
- Neuroscience: Using New Technologies to Understand the Brain
- Medical Education: Training Students to be Change Agents
- Vaccines: Fine-tuning Immune Response
- Geriatric Medicine: Caring for the Aging Brain
- Health Equity: Addressing Disparities in Pallative Care
- Cancer Research and Care: Personalized and More Effective Therapies
- Integrative Immunobiology: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Human Immune System
- Genomics and Precision Health: Using Genetic Tools to Prevent Disease
Story originally published in DukeMed Alumni News, Fall 2024.
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