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The People’s Epidemiology Library (PEL)
has selected Stephen Walter, professor in the Department of
Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at McMaster University in
Hamilton Ontario Canada, as the winner of its essay contest to
write short essays explaining to a wider public the main topics of
epidemiology methods and concepts. Walter beat out other entrants
in the contest on the basis of his credentials and experience in
epidemiology, a brief outline conveying the general approach he
would take in writing the essays, and a sample of his writing
style.
Other Applicants
Other applicants included a faculty member from Saint Louis
University School of Public Health, a medical doctor with a PhD in
epidemiology working at NIH, an assistant scientist from the Johns
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and an assistant
professor in the University of Minnesota School of Medicine.
The Prize
The prize for winning the contest is $4,000 to cover travel
expenses to the IEA World Congress of Epidemiology in Edinburgh
Scotland in August 2011. Sponsors of the PEL expect to officially
launch the Library website at that meeting and to publish a first
draft of the essays at that time (see related interview in this
issue).
We contacted Walter to ask him his thoughts about the contest and
his plans for writing the essays. Here is what he told the
Epidemiology Monitor:
How did it make
you feel to learn you were selected to write the essays?
I was surprised and delighted to hear
that I had won. Because this is the first competition of its type
that I had heard of, I had no idea of the level or amount of
competition that might be out there. By coincidence, I did my
graduate studies at the University of Edinburgh, so being able to
re-visit one of my favourite cities was an added bonus.
What motivated you
to want to do this in the first place?
I saw the announcement in the
Epidemiology Monitor, and was attracted by the idea of writing
about Epidemiology for the general public. This is an area that
many of us in academic epidemiology do not often do, but I think
it is a very important thing to pursue.
What made you
think you might be good at doing this?
I have worked in various domains of
epidemiology during my career, including risk factor etiology,
public health, and, more recently, clinical epidemiology. I
thought that experience would give me a broad base to comment on
our discipline.
As part of the competition process,
applicants were asked to provide an example of their writing aimed
at a general audience. I happen to be a member of a local
symphony orchestra, and I write the concert program notes for it.
The audience members reading those notes range considerably, from
people who know the music in great detail, to people who have
never heard of it before. I included an extract of my program
notes from a recent concert as my example for the competition.
What feature do
you think stands out in the approach you will use to complete the
essays?
The challenge in writing the essays
will be to be selective from the huge range of topics that might
come under discussion, but at the same time make the essays
accessible to readers with a wide variety of backgrounds. I will
try to avoid technical jargon as much as possible, and make the
text accessible to the lay reader. I will also try to convey my
enthusiasm for the discipline, and to indicate why epidemiology is
so important in contemporary society.
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