Meaning & use
epidemiologist
Last updated
Meaning
nouncountablemedical
A scientist who studies how diseases spread through groups of people and what causes and controls them.
Grammar: Takes an or an: an epidemiologist tracks outbreaks.
Patterns
- an epidemiologist at somewhere
- an epidemiologist who studies something
An epidemiologist explained how the virus was spreading through the city.
The epidemiologist compared the number of cases before and after vaccination.
She trained as an epidemiologist and now works for a public health agency.
Word forms
| plural | epidemiologists |
|---|
Common combinations
- leading epidemiologist
- A leading epidemiologist advised the government.
- infectious disease epidemiologist
- The infectious disease epidemiologist tracked the outbreak.
- epidemiologist at a university
- He is an epidemiologist at a university hospital.
- epidemiologists warn
- Epidemiologists warn that cases may rise in winter.
- public health epidemiologist
- The public health epidemiologist briefed the council.
Synonyms and how they differ
- disease detective
- Disease detective is a casual, news-style nickname for the same job, while epidemiologist is the formal title.
- public health scientist
- Public health scientist is broader and includes people who do not track disease patterns.
- medical researcher
- Medical researcher is wider still and may study treatments in a lab rather than disease spread.
Word family
- epidemiology noun
- the study of how diseases spread and can be controlled
- epidemiological adjective
- relating to epidemiology
- epidemic noun
- a widespread outbreak of a disease
- epidemiologic adjective
- a variant of epidemiological
Commonly confused: epidemiologist or epidermologist?
epidemiologist vs epidermologist
This is a misspelling. An epidermologist is not a normal term, while a dermatologist studies the skin and an epidemiologist studies disease patterns.
Practice
What would an epidemiologist most likely study?
Choose one answer.
Epidemiologists study how diseases move through populations, so a flu outbreak is the best choice. The other topics belong to engineering, ornithology and economics.
Make it your own
Write a sentence using “epidemiologist”, then check it and compare it with the examples above.