CDC Public Health Fellowship

A research opportunity is currently available with the Division of Toxicology and Human Health Statistics, in the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) located in Atlanta, Georgia. 

Under the guidance of a mentor, the participant will be training on a funded project entitled Expansion of the Assessment of Chemical Exposures Toolkit with Identified Needs. When a large chemical incident occurs and people are injured, public health agencies need to be able to rapidly provide guidance and respond to questions from the public, the media, and public officials. State and local health departments have called upon ATSDR for technical assistance, so in 2010 ATSDR developed the Assessment of Chemical Exposure (ACE) program https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/states/background.html to conduct chemical public health investigations after major chemical accidents or acts of terrorism. A key component of ACE is the Toolkit, which contains materials that can be quickly and easily modified for different situations. The toolkit contains surveys of affected persons, responders, and hospital emergency department staff, informed consent and medical record release forms, medical chart abstraction forms, interviewer training manual, and Epi Info™7 databases to enter and analyze the data. If the state epidemiologist requests an Epi Aid, we form a multi-disciplinary multi-agency team and deploy to assist with activities such as GIS mapping and sample methodologies, specimen analysis, and liaising with other federal agencies. To date there have been 9 very prominent ACE investigation requests with important local and state impacts including supporting the public health response, targeting outreach to prevent similar incidents, assessing the need to modify emergency response procedures, and identifying a group of exposed people that may need to be followed for long-term effects. Results have been published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report and elsewhere for preparedness awareness.

The purpose of this project is to assess stakeholder needs and gather best practices to include new ACE toolkit guidance on how to analyze and interpret exposure, health, medical, and response data particularly more details on how to perform geographic mapping and sampling, laboratory testing, and to include new guidance on how to conduct hospital or poison control center surveillance, provide information to the media, and interact within the confusing multitude of agencies to get what you need. ATSDR is currently piloting a course at the FEMA Center for Domestic Preparedness in Anniston, Alabama called Disaster Response Exposure Assessment and Monitoring (DREAM). The 4-day course covers ACE, and two other tools/framework followed by a day long hands-on field exercise. By expanding and enhancing the ACE toolkit and using DREAM to train State, locals, tribal, and territorial public health professionals, these professionals should become comfortable with these new materials and doing assessments of exposures and health effects with little assistance. Part of the project will also be training the participant to expand the toolkit to apply to more environmental hazards than chemicals and to create new data entry screens in the CDC free software, Epi Info, to allow for field data collection which would greatly improve efficiency.

This program, administered by ORAU through its contract with the U.S. Department of Energy to manage the Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, was established through an interagency agreement between DOE and CDC. The initial appointment can be up to one year, but may be renewed upon recommendation of CDC contingent on the availability of funds. The participant will receive a monthly stipend commensurate with educational level and experience. Proof of health insurance is required for participation in this program. The appointment is full-time at CDC in the Atlanta, Georgia, area. Participants do not become employees of CDC, DOE or the program administrator, and there are no employment-related benefits.

The qualified candidate should have received a master's degree in one of the relevant fields, or be currently pursuing the degree and will reach completion by June 2020. Degree must have been received within five years of the appointment start date.

This opportunity is available to US citizens only.

If you have questions, send an email to ORISE.CDC.ATSDR@orau.org. Please include the reference code for this opportunity (CDC-ATSDR-2020-0107) in your email.