Overview
Mission
- The educational mission of the Department is to train students, fellows and faculty in methods for studying disease etiology and prevention in general populations, for evaluating diagnostic tests and treatment efficacy in clinical settings, and for using evidence-based approaches in clinical practice.
- The scientific mission is to do outstanding clinical and population-based research in these areas, often in collaboration with other departments and institutions, and to guide use of the findings in clinical practice and public health policies.
Organization
The Department has five Divisions that oversee teaching and other academic activities, and manage faculty appointments and promotions.
- The Division of Biostatistics (Dr McCulloch, Head) oversees biostatistical teaching and consultation. Faculty in this Division carry out research on statistical methods, and collaborate with investigators in other UCSF departments in the areas of study design and data analysis, and in bioinformatics.
- The Division of Cancer Epidemiology (Dr Holly, Head) provides training in cancer and molecular epidemiology. Faculty in this Division also conduct research in collaboration with the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center Population Sciences Division (Dr Hiatt, Director). Dr Green directs the Cancer Center's research in Social and Behavioral Sciences, and Dr Witte is Co-Leader of the Center's Cancer Genetics program. Dr Witte is also Associate Director of the Institute for Human Genetics.
- The Division of Clinical Epidemiology (Dr Newman, Head) focuses on teaching the methods of evidence-based medicine and clinical research through the Training in Clinical Research (TICR) program. The Division is also home to Clinical and Translational Sciences Training (CTST), which coordinates training in clinical and translational research for students, residents, fellows and junior faculty in all UCSF Schools and Departments.
- The Division of Clinical Trials and Multicenter Studies (Dr Black, Head) leads methodologic advances in approaches to designing, coordinating, analyzing, and disseminating the results of clinical investigations, and participates in the activities of the San Francisco Coordinating Center.
- The Division of Preventive Medicine and Public Health (Dr Rutherford, Head) leads teaching of topics ranging from preventive medicine to public health and managed care. Faculty in this Division carry out most of the Department's research on AIDS and infectious disease and on international health.
The Department also has programs that serve as support groups for specified academic pursuits, and it has two centers and a consulting unit.
- The Institute for Human Genetics (Dr Risch, Director; Dr Witte, Associate Director) serves as a focal point for campus-wide activities in human genetics and has faculty members spanning three schools; Medicine, Nursing and Pharmacy.
- The Program in International Health (Dr Novotny, Head) supports UCSF courses, the Global Health Area of Concentration Program and multi-university discussion groups that address the global burden of disease and global approaches to health improvement. Dr. Novotny also directs the Office of International Programs in the School of Medicine, which coordinates opportunities for medical students to work internationally.
- The Biostatistics Research Program (Dr Neuhaus, Head) promotes intellectual exchange and collaboration on the design and analysis of studies involving longitudinal, cluster, and survival data. The Program convenes seminars, discussions of work in progress and a journal club, it promotes grant development in the area of biostatistical methodology, and it sponsors visiting scholars.
- The Center for Bioinformatics and Molecular Biostatistics (CBMB) (Dr Segal, Head) develops data analytic methods required to make sense of the large data volumes generated by the emerging techniques of molecular biology. The center forms partnerships with other campus groups to carry out research in this area; recruits fellows and junior faculty and helps to retrain interested existing faculty, and contributes to campus-wide bioinformatics teaching.
- The San Francisco Coordinating Center is a collaborative enterprise that draws on scientists at UCSF and CPMC to design and manage multi-center clinical trials and longitudinal studies of health, aging, osteoporosis, and cardiovascular disease. Teams are responsible for scientific design and direction, data collection and management, data analysis and publications, and quality control components of complex multi-center studies.
History
Epidemiology and biostatistics are relatively recent arrivals among the classic medical school disciplines. They have combined to play a powerful role in modern medicine, having become the basic science of both clinical research and evidence-based medicine. Thus it is not surprising that the past two decades have seen exceptional growth in the size and stature of our Department’s faculty and staff, in the number of grants and contracts from NIH and elsewhere for our research activities, and in the success of our teaching programs.