Epidemiology: The Basic Science of Public Health

Dr. Karin Yeatts is a research assistant professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the UNC School of Public Health. She is also affiliated with the UNC Public Health Leadership program, the UNC Institute of Public Health, and the Center for Environmental Medicine, Asthma, and Lung Biology (CEMALB) at the UNC School of Medicine.


As an environmental epidemiologist, Dr. Yeatts conduct research on the health effects of air pollution. She also conducts a parallel line of research focused on asthma epidemiology. This research has included both descriptive work as well as investigations of asthma healthcare and management.

Dr. Yeatts has collaborated with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the US Centers for Disease Control, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and, most recently, the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates.

Dr. Yeatts is the lead faculty instructor for UNC’s “Introduction to Epidemiology”, and “Methods in Field Epidemiology” courses. She also teaches an undergraduate “Introduction to Public Health” course, and co-teaches “Epidemiology for Environmental Scientists and Engineers.” Witin the UNC Institute of Public Health she has developed content for online training modules for the Center’s training Web site and the graduate certificate program in field epidemiology.

Dr. Yeatts earned a BA in chemistry from Bowdoin College, a MS in environmental science and engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, a MS in epidemiology from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, and a PhD in epidemiology from the UNC School of Public Health.

Dr. Yeatts loves epidemiology, teaching, and research-As one of her mentors once said, epidemiology is like riding a bicycle-you can ride it anywhere!