The epidemiology program addresses health disparities as a crosscutting theme at the local, national, and global levels via didactic training, practicums, and applied hands-on research leading to the written thesis. All students take a sequence of core courses in epidemiology, health disparities research, and introduction to the concentrations. Then the students choose one of the three areas of concentrations offered for their electives and thesis focus. Our curriculum provides an opportunity for students: to develop an understanding of the principles of social justice and health equity, and to recognize the biological, social, and economic determinants of health disparities nationally and globally, through scientifically grounded training in theory, policy and, research in epidemiology to study and apply epidemiological methods to the investigation of health disparities, and to understand role of community-based and community-engaged research in the amelioration of health disparities to recognize existing disparities across common health conditions and specific methods to eliminate such disparities.<br><br>The Infectious Disease Epidemiology concentration provides graduate students with extensive training in the epidemiologic principles related to the microbiology, virology, and parasitology of infectious diseases and the associated clinical and scientific methods associated with diagnosis and treatment of infectious diseases, surveillance along with modes and dynamics of transmission, disease elimination strategies, global, national, and local disparities in infectious diseases, and exploratory and inferential statistical analyses to model disease patterns. This track will forge the successful training of scientific professionals who will be able to interact with other interdisciplinary professionals so as to mitigate the impact of infectious diseases and infectious disease-related disparities.