Preventive Medicine Physicians — Tasks

Task statements

• Direct or manage prevention programs in specialty areas such as aerospace, occupational, infectious disease, and environmental medicine.
• Document or review comprehensive patients' histories with an emphasis on occupation or environmental risks.
• Identify groups at risk for specific preventable diseases or injuries.
• Perform epidemiological investigations of acute and chronic diseases.
• Supervise or coordinate the work of physicians, nurses, statisticians, or other professional staff members.
• Design or use surveillance tools, such as screening, lab reports, and vital records, to identify health risks.
• Direct public health education programs dealing with topics such as preventable diseases, injuries, nutrition, food service sanitation, water supply safety, sewage and waste disposal, insect control, and immunizations.
• Evaluate the effectiveness of prescribed risk reduction measures or other interventions.
• Provide information about potential health hazards and possible interventions to the media, the public, other health care professionals, or local, state, and federal health authorities.
• Teach or train medical staff regarding preventive medicine issues.
• Coordinate or integrate the resources of health care institutions, social service agencies, public safety workers, or other organizations to improve community health.
• Prepare preventive health reports, including problem descriptions, analyses, alternative solutions, and recommendations.
• Design, implement, or evaluate health service delivery systems to improve the health of targeted populations.
• Develop or implement interventions to address behavioral causes of diseases.
• Deliver presentations to lay or professional audiences.