CDC Toxicosurveillance and Environmental Health Fellowship

About the role

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is one of the major operation components of the Department of Health and Human Services. CDC works to protect America from health, safety and security threats, both foreign and in the U.S. Whether diseases start at home or abroad, are chronic or acute, curable or preventable, human error or deliberate attack, CDC fights disease and supports communities and citizens to do the same.

Learning Objectives

• Gain experience on the activities within the Poison Center Collaboration and Public Health Community of Practice (PCPHCoP), including attending webinars and engagement activities, and gaining experience with speaker logistics and communications.
• Gain experience developing communication items for community members, including newsletters, announcements, and other related content.
• Explore available collaboration platforms to gain experience with information sharing among poison centers and public health partners.
• Gain experience in national toxicosurveillance activities using the National Poison Data System (NPDS), including how poison center data are used for public health surveillance and identification of emerging toxicological threats.
• Learn from staff on routine NPDS surveillance activities, including drafting state notifications of incidents of public health significance.
• Gain experience reviewing and analyzing poison center data to identify unusual exposure patterns, clusters, and incidents of potential public health significance.
• Improve data analysis and epidemiologic skills by training with toxicosurveillance projects, investigations, and applied research activities.
• Learn how CDC supports responses to toxic exposures, environmental contamination incidents, and other environmental health threats, including exposure to surveillance approaches used to monitor toxic exposures, environmental hazards, disasters, and other incidents of public health significance.
• Learn about disaster epidemiology activities such as toxicosurveillance, disaster-related surveillance, and rapid needs assessments.
• Learn about data analysis, literature reviews, surveillance summaries, situation reports, and other activities that support situational awareness and public health action.
• Learn how surveillance findings from multiple data sources are integrated and translated into actionable information for public health practitioners and decision-makers during preparedness, response, and recovery activities.
• Learn about the development of scientific products and improve presentation and communication skills.
• Gain experience in scientific writing, data interpretation, and dissemination of public health findings.
• Develop oral and written communication skills through participation in team meetings, trainings, and collaborative projects.
• Gain experience by presenting fellowship activities, project updates, or lessons learned at Section, Branch, or other internal meetings at least once per year.

Mentor

The mentor for this opportunity is Amy Helene Schnall (GHU5@cdc.gov).

Qualifications

• The qualified candidate should have received a master's degree in one of the relevant fields (public health, epidemiology, environmental health, toxicology, environmental sciences, emergency preparedness, or a related field), or be currently pursuing a master's degree in one of the relevant fields.
• Degree must have been received within the past five years.
• Applicants with demonstrated interest or experience in public health surveillance, toxicology, environmental health, disaster epidemiology, or emergency preparedness and response are encouraged to apply.

Preferred Skills

• Training, experience, or interest in epidemiology, public health surveillance, toxicology, environmental health, disaster epidemiology, emergency preparedness, or related public health fields.
• Familiarity and/or interest in learning about the toxicological and radiological sciences/fields.
• Strong written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to communicate technical information to diverse audiences.
• Ability to collaborate effectively with multidisciplinary teams, including epidemiologists, toxicologists, clinicians, data scientists, and federal, state, tribal, local, and territorial (STLT) public health partners.
• Experience with data management and analysis of epidemiologic, surveillance, or public health data.
• Strong organizational skills and attention to detail, with the ability to manage multiple assignments and be on complex projects.