85 years of the Department of Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine of Kazan State ­Medical University: from history to modern times

Abstract

In 2023, it was 85 years since the founding of the Department of Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine at Kazan State Medical University. The article describes the main stages of the history of the department, from its foundation to the present day. The first head of the department in 1938 was V.I. Popov. In addition to successful work in training specialists, the history of the department was marked by extensive scientific activity and work carried out in the direction of the infectious diseases prevention, including as part of eliminating outbreaks. Employees of the department have carried out scientific research devoted to improving the diagnosis of infectious diseases, improving epidemiological surveillance in order to further reduce the incidence and eliminate current infections, including diphtheria, typhus and typhoid fever, tuberculosis, smallpox, viral hepatitis, infection caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, etc. A significant part of the scientific work carried out by the staff of the department concerned the study of post-infectious and post-vaccination immunity, as well as the study of the influence of environmental risk factors on the immunological reactivity of the body. The change in the paradigm of modern epidemiology and the epidemic situation has necessitated modification of the educational process with the inclusion in the program and expansion of teaching in such areas as clinical epidemiology, hospital epidemiology, and military epidemiology. In 2016, the department was renamed the Department of Epidemiology and Evidence-Based Medicine.