Publications

Epidemiology is the study of patterns of health and illness and how these are distributed in a given population. Combining elements of biology and medical science, sociology, environmental science, and statistics, it could be defined as the intersection of public health and data science. Epidemiology is increasingly relevant to modern life. Worldwide travel, human habitations encroaching on wild lands, and climate change are making epidemics ever more frequent. Meanwhile, political leaders in the US make controversial and often unsupported claims about the causes of chronic diseases. Yet epidemiology has virtually no presence in the K–12 curriculum in the US. For example, in the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) the words “pandemic,” “epidemic,” and “epidemiology” do not occur at all (NGSS, n.d.). This is a missed opportunity. A thoughtful combination of epidemiology and data science has the potential to provide an interdisciplinary curriculum that young people find highly motivating. Mathematics, biology, and what history teaches us about human behavior can combine with data to tell a coherent story. The topic of diseases and how they spread highlights the nature of scientific discovery while furnishing young people with key skills for the modern workplace such as analyzing information and reasoning from evidence. 

The goal of this paper is to prompt educators, researchers, and policy makers to consider the educational value of teaching data-centered epidemiology: specifically, the value of developing statistical understanding of how to interrogate and interpret large datasets while at the same time developing an understanding of how diseases spread. The work is interdisciplinary, and while it may be hard to fit into a standard curriculum, there are many potential rewards.

Suggested citation: 
Mokros, J., Sagrans, J., Noyce, P., & Nicholson, J. (2025). Data stories about disease: Finding a place to teach data-centered epidemiology. Tumblehome Inc. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/675ba372da98551f192c3f87/t/68a453e0771e1004c3408f99/1755599840443/Data+Stories+about+Disease.pdf