When Sara Wilton graduated with a master’s degree in public health this summer, she knew her job was going to be an important one
“I wanted to work somewhere where I could help with the COVID pandemic,” she said.
Wilton, 33, of St. Louis County started work July 13 as the Jefferson County Health Department’s epidemiologist and has been focused on helping people understand COVID-19 ever since.
For example, at 5 p.m. every Wednesday Wilton delivers a “Stats with Sara” video, going over the previous week’s COVID-19 data and answering questions from the community. The videos are posted on the Health Department’s Facebook page and website.
Wilton replaced Dylan Steigerwald, who had been the Health Department’s epidemiologist since June 2016.
Health Department Director Kelly Vollmar said Steigerwald left on good terms after landing a job in another state.
Wilton is being paid $47,500 a year. Steigerwald’s salary was $52,675.92 when he left, Health Department Administrative Services Manager Jennifer Pinkley said. Vollmar said she is happy to have Wilton join the team.
Wilton said her work days are busy and ever-changing, which is part of what she enjoys about her new job.
“I’d say there are standard weekly tasks I do right now, such as compiling the COVID-19 data from the previous week, creating the weekly surveillance reports and keeping an eye on any trends in the data,” she said.
However, new projects “constantly” come up, Wilton added.
“My job is mainly COVID right now, but as we start to near flu season, I’ve been dedicating some time to getting prepared for that as well,” she said.
Wilton said she is thankful her career path led her to the Health Department.
“We have such an incredible team that I’m proud to be a part of and we are working really hard to keep our community safe and healthy,” she said.
Wilton, who graduated from Mizzou in July, said finishing school during a pandemic was a “very surreal experience.”
“Obviously, we had learned about things like (pandemics) the previous couple of years, but never in a million years did I think we would actually be experiencing something like this,” she said. Wilton earned an undergraduate degree in interior design from Missouri State in 2009, but soon she headed down a different career path. In 2012, she started working as a fitness and nutrition coach and later decided to go back to school so she could help more people improve their health.
“For me, it was more about wanting to help a greater number of people than my 20 to 35 clients I had at that time,” she said.
Wilton said she originally started a master’s program with plans to focus on health education, but again her plans changed.
“Somewhere along the line as I took more classes, I ended up kind of finding my passion was more in the data and the epidemiology side of public health,” she said.