D. Rebecca Prevots, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Chief, Epidemiology Section
Epidemiology is a core science in public health that includes surveillance, observation, hypothesis testing, analytic research, and experiments and interventions. As the fundamental science of preventive medicine and public health, epidemiology has traditionally focused on disease causation through population studies. Epidemiologists develop and evaluate hypotheses about the effects of hereditary, behavioral, environmental, and healthcare factors on human health and develop the knowledge bases for disease prevention and control programs. The field is interdisciplinary and has a methodology distinct from, but dependent on, biostatistics. Epidemiologists incorporate into their research the knowledge base and tools of other disciplines including the biologic sciences, clinical research, and other population sciences.
The Epidemiology Section leads and supports research of relevance to the mission of NIAID and the Laboratory of Clinical Infectious Diseases, with approaches that include the following:
- Analysis of national morbidity and mortality datasets (e.g., hospital discharge datasets) to develop and test hypotheses regarding disease prevalence, trends, and risk factors
- Integrated analysis of clinical and microbiologic data using multivariate methods to identify relative host and pathogen contributions to infection and disease
- Design of clinical and population-based studies with appropriate methods and sampling strategies
- Application of population-based strategies to studies of infectious disease, incorporating the tools of molecular biology and genetics into population-based samples to identify markers of disease susceptibility
Other research areas include seasonality in infectious diseases, pre- and post-licensure vaccine evaluation, health disparities in severe outcomes of infectious diseases, defining optimal clinical end-points for clinical trials of vaccines, and technical evaluation of data underlying science-to-policy issues.
Training is vital to the mission of the Epidemiology Section, and we maintain ties to schools of public health in the Washington, DC, and Maryland areas, as well as around the country. We provide research training opportunities to post-baccalaureate, M.P.H., and Ph.D. students. In addition, we maintain ties with academic institutions, national organizations (e.g., Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Food and Drug Administration), and international organizations (e.g., World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization) to embed trainees within ongoing research in a public health context.
Ongoing Research Projects
- Epidemiology of nontuberculous mycobacteria (NTM) in the United States
- Trends in NTM-associated hospitalizations in the United States
- Evaluation of rapid low-cost diagnostic methods for detection of tuberculosis (TB) and multidrug-resistant TB in Mozambique and Brazil
- Antibiotic prescription patterns and cost of treatment of NTM
- Antigenic and clonal diversity of Neisseria meningitidis group B in Brazil
Research Group Members
D. Rebecca Prevots, Ph.D., M.P.H., Epidemiologist; Kenneth N. Olivier, M.D., M.P.H., Clinical Epidemiologist; Ruben Montes de Oca, M.S., Data Manager; Amy E. Seitz, M.P.H., Research Assistant
Selected Publications
To view a complete listing, visit PubMed.
Fauci AS, NIAID Tuberculosis Working Group. Multidrug-resistant and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis: The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases research agenda and recommendations for priority research. J Infect Dis. 2008 Apr 21;197:1493-8.
Jeon CY, Hwang SH, Min JH, Prevots DR, Goldfeder LC, Lee H, Eum SY, Jeon DS, Kang HS, Kim JH, Kim BJ, Kim DY, Holland SM, Park SK, Cho SN, Barry CE 3rd, Via LE. Extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis in South Korea: risk factors and treatment outcomes among patients at a tertiary referral hospital. Clin Infect Dis. 2008 Jan 1; 46(1):42-9.
de Filippis I, de Andrade CF, Silva L, Prevots DR, Vicente AC. PorA variable antigenic regions VR1, VR2, and VR3 of Neisseria meningitides serogroups B and C isolated in Brazil from 1999 to 2004. Infect Immun. 2007 Jul;75(7):3683-5.
Tapiainen T, Prevots R, Izurieta HS, Abramson J, Bilynsky R, Bonhoeffer J, Bonnet MC, Center K, Galama J, Gillard P, Griot M, Hartmann K, Heininger U, Hudson M, Koller A, Khetsuriani N, Khuri-Bulos N, Marcy SM, Matulionyte R, Schondorf I, Sejvar J, Steele R. Aseptic meningitis: case definition and guidelines for collection, analysis and presentation of immunization safety data. Vaccine. 2007 Aug 1;25(31):5793-802.
Lanzieri TM, Prevots DR, Dourado I. Surveillance of congenital rubella syndrome in Brazil, 1995-2005. Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2007; 2:1-6.
Lipner EM, Gopi PG, Subramani R, Kolappan C, Sadacharam K, Kumaran P, Prevots DR, Narayanan PR, Nutman TB, Kumaraswami V. Coincident filarial, intestinal helminth, and mycobacterial infection: helminths fail to influence tuberculin reactivity, but BCG influences hookworm prevalence. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2006 May;74(5):841-7.
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