Thursday, 09 December 2021 | PNS | Dehradun
At a time when the Covid-19 pandemic has increased the importance of epidemiologists, the Swami Rama Himalayan University’s Himalayan Institute of Medical Sciences is already conducting Master of Science (MSc) in Epidemiology.
Epidemiology is a public health branch that deals in controlling disease epidemics, endemic and pandemics.
Epidemiologists are considered as “disease detectives” of the public health world. They focus on disease in communities and populations as a whole, rather than on individuals. Epidemiologists work in the routine health system strengthening via regular monitoring and supervision of frontline workers and stakeholders and decreasing the workload of medical officers working at PHC/CHC/district levels also. Their work involves gathering health-related information in the hospitals/ community and studying samples of the population that include healthy and unhealthy individuals and time to time do IEC activities. At the times of crisis, their work is invaluable as they can predict the future disease occurrences and spread of disease by using various mathematical models and biostatistics and can make recommendations on preventative measures.
The SRHU vice chancellor Vijay Dhasmana said that this is the most demanding field and is gaining tremendous momentum during the circumstances caused by the Covid pandemic. SRHU is the only university in Northern India which runs this two-year course.
