I study and work in epidemiology and it’s really bad for small talk. When people ask me what I do sometimes I answer, “medical research” just to dull the blow. When I do say epidemiology people either change the subject because they have no idea what epidemiology is, or they change the subject because they know epidemiologists are a bunch of people who just go around talking in uncertainties saying we can’t really know anything for sure.

BBC Radio 4 aired a great show yesterday by the wonderful epidemiologist/journalist Ben Goldacre on what epidemiology really is and why we go about doing studies the way we do. The show focuses on birth cohorts–groups of people researchers follow from birth in order to find out what affects people’s health over a lifetime–but gives a great outline of epidemiology. It’s only a half hour long so give it a listen.