Exonian Profiles
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An Ounce of Prevention: Epidemiologist Joanna Buffington
’76
As an epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control in Atlanta, Dr. Joanna Buffington ’76 knows all about hard work, long hours and life-and-death circumstances. In all, she has helped investigate more than half a dozen major outbreaks of infectious disease, including the 1995 Ebola outbreak in Zaire. But Buffington also knows the role serendipity can play in shaping one’s life. Just out of medical school, she was working as an intern in a primary-care program and growing discouraged by the realization that she did not want to spend all her time in hospitals. It was, she says, “sheer luck” that one of her mentors was a doctor who had worked on the eradication of small pox in the 1960s. Buffington has always been drawn toward the prevention of disease, wanting to learn how to keep people healthy as opposed to struggling to treat them when they became sick. Looking into programs in medical epidemiology, she found they matched her interests. A year as a research fellow in epidemiology—studying disease trends, patterns and issues in populations—was followed by a two-year program in the Epidemic Intelligence Service at the CDC. Here she was a part of a group of health professionals trained to investigate outbreaks of disease and find solutions to major health problems. As an agency of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the CDC has little jurisdiction of its own. By invitation, its doctors and staff people work with national and local agencies, and with governments worldwide, to research and evaluate many infectious diseases. It was in this capacity that Buffington traveled to Zaire in 1995 to study the Ebola outbreak. “I was there for a month finalizing data collection, mapping out areas where people and animals lived and helping to analyze the data,“ she says. “That part of my job was so rewarding it convinced me I wanted to stay in public health.” Now a medical epidemiologist in the hepatitis branch of the CDC, Buffington continues to travel widely. Last fall, she was a technical consultant for UNICEF and the World Health Organization, assisting the Ministry of Health in Baku, Azerbaijan, put together a plan for the introduction of hepatitis B vaccine into their childhood vaccination program. Much of her national or international work involves meeting with health officials to help them plan for integrating hepatitis prevention measures—education, counseling, testing, vaccinations, for example. Ultimately this is where she sees her career leading. In 10 years or so, she “would love to be a local health officer in a smaller community,” she says. “I’ve been gaining all this experience, and I’ve really enjoyed the international work, but I would like to go back to the local level and make an impact in smaller communities.” Buffington—who by now has a long list of degrees following her name: M.D., M.P.H, M.S.—sees public health as a field where she can make a big difference in health in general. “Preventive medicine confronts issues that reach whole groups of people, things like vaccinations or learning about what keeps us healthy and what keeps us from getting sick, as opposed to doing that on a one-to-one basis.” This is where Buffington has always seen herself fitting in as a doctor and where her medical career is making a difference for people around the globe. —Janice Reiter |
