# Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases

> **NIH NIH T32** · HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH · 2021 · $366,769

## Abstract

Project Summary
Despite progress in prevention and treatment by sanitation, antimicrobials, vaccines, and other
measures, infectious diseases still threaten life and health. In 2016, communicable diseases
accounted for over 17% of disability-adjusted life years lost worldwide. With globalization,
infectious disease threats (previously seen as being limited to less-developed countries) threaten
everyone (like Ebola, HIV, MERS, pandemic influenza, and growing resistance to antimicrobial
drugs). The combination of computational power and “Big Data” provides a new opportunity to
study infectious diseases and their transmission through novel approaches, necessitating new
sophistication in the training of infectious disease epidemiologists. We recognize the need for a
corps of academic and government epidemiologists, equipped to deploy sophisticated
approaches to causal inference, transmission-dynamic modeling, model fitting using MCMC and
other Bayesian techniques, population genomics, phylogenetics, and other novel techniques.
 The goal of Harvard Chan School of Public Health’s (HSPH) Interdisciplinary Program in
Infectious Disease Epidemiology (IPIDE) is to train graduates who can apply these diverse tools
to meet the infectious disease threats of a new generation. Our training faculty includes leading
practitioners of all of these techniques and our recent graduates are emerging with deep training,
research experience, and publications in many of these areas. The training program includes
coursework in epidemiology, drug resistance, and mathematical modeling of disease from IPIDE
under the close supervision of our 25 faculty mentors, leading either to a DSc or a PhD. A
tremendously successful postdoctoral training program has to date relied on research funding.
 Harvard’s IPIDE has been running successfully for 20 years, and this training grant has
helped develop not only a new cadre of students with the capacity to monitor, prevent, and
suppress diverse emerging infectious diseases but has also allowed IPIDE to expand its faculty,
funding, diversity of research, and, the number of students who join the infectious disease
epidemiology program. Over the past ten years, 23 trainees have been supported, 18 graduated,
and they published 581 peer-reviewed manuscripts (177 first author publications). For the current
submission, we propose to support 5 pre-doc and 2 post-doctoral trainees each year over the
next five-year project period. Adding these postdoctoral positions will realize synergies and
collaborative opportunities between pre- and postdoctoral fellows and create the opportunity to
build new means of integrating postdocs into the highly interdisciplinary training environment.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10088971
- **Project number:** 2T32AI007535-21A1
- **Recipient organization:** HARVARD UNIVERSITY D/B/A HARVARD SCHOOL OF PUBLIC HEALTH
- **Principal Investigator:** Albert Hofman
- **Activity code:** T32 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $366,769
- **Award type:** 2
- **Project period:** 1998-09-30 → 2026-08-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10088971

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10088971, Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases (2T32AI007535-21A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10088971. Licensed CC0.

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