I'm currently in a MPH program, concentrating in epidemiology. At the moment I'm having a bit of a crisis, trying to figure out whether to go into a doctoral program for either 1) clinical health psychology or 2) psychiatric epidemiology.
I'm trying to gather as much info. as I can about the field and so was wondering whether anyone here does research relating to psychiatric problems? I'm interested in the etiology of anxiety disorders and how anxiety increases stress, ultimately leading to worse health outcomes. I'm also fairly interested in neurological disorders.
Normally I think someone would look at my interests and just say go the psyc. route. But I'm interested in health outcomes and the prevalence of these diseases and like to think of them on a more population based scope (though to be fair, this IS what health psyc. programs try to do).
Plus, I think epi. programs are a lot more flexible in the scope of research topics than are psyc. programs. Also, to be honest, if I can study what I want without taking off two years to get the research experience required to get into clinical psyc. programs, I'd be a happy woman.
I guess my questions are: do you need a clinical degree to work with clinical populations (specifically in terms of mental health)? Are there going to be jobs out there for people with doctorates in epi. outside of academia? If anyone has had experience with psychiatric epi., where do you work/ what do you do, and what did you like/dislike about your training and the whole process in general?
Thanks in advance!
I'm trying to gather as much info. as I can about the field and so was wondering whether anyone here does research relating to psychiatric problems? I'm interested in the etiology of anxiety disorders and how anxiety increases stress, ultimately leading to worse health outcomes. I'm also fairly interested in neurological disorders.
Normally I think someone would look at my interests and just say go the psyc. route. But I'm interested in health outcomes and the prevalence of these diseases and like to think of them on a more population based scope (though to be fair, this IS what health psyc. programs try to do).
Plus, I think epi. programs are a lot more flexible in the scope of research topics than are psyc. programs. Also, to be honest, if I can study what I want without taking off two years to get the research experience required to get into clinical psyc. programs, I'd be a happy woman.
I guess my questions are: do you need a clinical degree to work with clinical populations (specifically in terms of mental health)? Are there going to be jobs out there for people with doctorates in epi. outside of academia? If anyone has had experience with psychiatric epi., where do you work/ what do you do, and what did you like/dislike about your training and the whole process in general?
Thanks in advance!
