California Epidemiologic Investigation Service Fellowship Program

Mission: To prepare epidemiologists for public health leadership positions in California.

New Funding Available from the Public Health Equity and Readiness Opportunity (HERO) Initiative

As part of the Public Health Equity and Readiness Opportunity (HERO) Initiative passed in the Budget Act 2022, California Epidemiologic Investigation Service (Cal-EIS) received new funding of $3.2M to the state general fund. This funding will be used to increase the number of Fellows trained in the Cal-EIS Fellowship Program over a three-year period. The intention is to hire Fellows through the University of California, Davis with a salary range of $50,000–$60,000 per year health benefits included.

Cal-EIS Goals:

• To provide experience in epidemiology and public health practice during placements with governmental health agencies.
• To produce well-trained epidemiologists for employment in California public health agencies.
• To assist local health departments in emergency outbreak and other field of epidemiology investigations, if the opportunity arises.
  

Cal-EIS is a one- or two-year program for promising epidemiologists to gain hands-on experience working with an epidemiologist preceptor in either local or state health departments in California.

Established in 1989 in response to the California Conference of Local Health Officers' need to employ qualified epidemiologists in California's health departments, Cal-EIS provides one year of training in applied epidemiology for epidemiologists who have recently graduated from a Master's degree program. Occasionally, there is the opportunity to extend the Fellowship for a second year.

Cal-EIS takes pride in public health workforce training. It is a unique program; very few states have a training program designed to train Master's-level epidemiologists. 

This program is supported by the Center for Disease Control and Prevention's Preventive Health Services Block Grant.