Program overview
Epidemiology and Health Statistics is a core field in public health. Simply put, it studies "how diseases spread, why they occur, how to prevent them" and "how to let data speak." You'll learn two main areas: epidemiology (e.g., tracking infectious disease transmission chains, designing clinical trials) and health statistics (e.g., analyzing health data, predicting disease trends). Core courses include Principles of Epidemiology, Biostatistics, Disease Surveillance and Investigation, Clinical Trial Design, and Health Big Data Analysis. Chinese universities have unique strengths in this field—for example, Peking University, Fudan University, and Huazhong University of Science and Technology have strong field investigation and data analysis teams. Moreover, the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) collaborates closely with universities, giving students opportunities to participate in real outbreak investigations or large-scale health projects. This major is ideal for students who are numbers-oriented, enjoy solving practical problems, and care about public health—you don't need a medical background, but you should have logical thinking and patience.