Volunteer Environmental Epidemiologist (Toxic Exposure In Military Families)

About VFEA

Veteran Families for Education and Awareness (VFEA) is a small, all‑volunteer nonprofit dedicated to raising awareness about toxic exposures affecting military and veteran families. We are a working board of seven volunteers with strong lived experience and advocacy backgrounds. Two of our current focus areas are:

• NAF Atsugi Shinkampo incinerator exposure
• Military aviation–related cancers

We are seeking a qualified volunteer epidemiologist to help strengthen the scientific foundation for future research, public-health planning, and advocacy involving an affected military-family exposure population.

About the role

VFEA is looking for an environmental, occupational, or public-health epidemiologist with experience in cohort studies, registry design, or public-health surveillance.

This flexible advisory role has three key objectives:

1. Review prior health studies and identify potential methodological gaps, limitations, unanswered questions, and concerns relevant to interpreting its findings.
2. Advise on future research options for the affected population. Help VFEA assess whether a formal epidemiologic or public-health study is feasible, scientifically justified, and likely to produce meaningful results. If so, recommend the most appropriate approach and identify what data, population characteristics, comparison groups, health outcomes, exposure information, and partnerships would be needed.
3. Help design the scientific framework for a private VFEA registry where eligible participants could voluntarily document exposure history and self-reported health outcomes. This includes helping define eligibility, core data elements, questionnaire topics, follow-up needs, and appropriate limits of interpretation.

Time commitment: Approximately 4–6 hours per month, flexible.

What you may help with

• Review prior study methods, participant selection, exposure classification, comparison groups, health outcomes, follow-up, analysis, conclusions, and stated limitations.
• Identify potential issues involving bias, confounding, missing data, exposure or outcome measurement, statistical power, and interpretation.
• Recommend research questions and design options for future study of the affected population.
• Advise on defining the exposure population, including service members, family members, people exposed during pregnancy, children, and other relevant groups.
• Identify possible data sources, outcome-verification options, comparison populations, and practical feasibility issues.
• Help define a private registry’s purpose, eligibility criteria, core data elements, survey topics, follow-up approach, and appropriate limits.
• Recommend ways to improve data quality while keeping participation manageable for community members.
• Help distinguish between what a voluntary registry can document and what would require a formal, independently conducted research study.

Qualifications

An advanced degree is required. Appropriate degrees include:

• MPH or MSPH with a concentration in epidemiology, environmental health, occupational health, biostatistics, or a closely related field.
• MS or MSc in epidemiology, public health, environmental health, occupational health, biostatistics, or a related discipline.
• PhD or DrPH in epidemiology, public health, environmental health, occupational health, biostatistics, or a closely related field.
• MD or DO with substantial training or professional experience in epidemiology, preventive medicine, occupational and environmental medicine, public health, or population-health research.

We are especially interested in applicants with experience in one or more of the following:

• Environmental, occupational, cancer, reproductive, pediatric, or public-health epidemiology.
• Retrospective or prospective cohort studies.
• Study design, bias, confounding, exposure classification, comparison groups, outcome ascertainment, missing data, or follow-up.
• Disease or exposure registries, public-health surveillance, longitudinal cohorts, or health surveys.
• Research feasibility planning, protocol development, or public-health research partnerships.

Experience working with military, veteran, or military-family health data is ideal, but not required. We welcome qualified applicants with relevant experience in other environmental, occupational, public-health, or community-exposure settings.

Scope

This is a scientific advisory role. The volunteer will not be asked to conduct a new study, perform a full statistical reanalysis, build a website, store identifiable health data, provide medical or legal advice, or determine individual causation.

Why volunteer with VFEA?

Your expertise can help identify unanswered questions in existing research, guide responsible future research planning, and help build a careful foundation for documenting exposure and health concerns within an affected military-family community.

As a small, all-volunteer organization, VFEA offers an opportunity for your contribution to directly inform public education, advocacy, research planning, and support for military families.