Epidemiologists not only answer questions about past and present determinants, but are increasingly being tasked with assessing hypothetical exposures. These hypothetical scenarios may be based on individual interventions (e.g., a new medication) or programmatic interventions (e.g., a new policy). While interventional studies are useful for determining efficacy in a study group, generalizability is often a concern. Further, observational studies will take many years of follow-up before population-level impacts can be assessed with newer interventions. Therefore, approaches based on unobserved, hypothetical data are warranted. In this talk, I will discuss causal approaches to studying infectious diseases in a population under which newer interventions are currently being scaled-up at a population level. Specific examples will include HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis and vaccination against HPV. Neal D. Goldstein, PhD, MBI is an assistant research professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Drexel University Dornsife School of Public Health (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania) and an epidemiologist at Christiana Care Health System (Newark, Delaware). Dr. Goldstein specializes in conducting research on the health effects of infectious diseases in vulnerable populations including children and sexual and gender minorities. He has extensive experience as an applied methodologist, particularly in epidemiological analyses from observational studies and secondary data sources. His research spans several disciplines including vaccine‐preventable diseases, sexually transmitted infections and HIV, pediatric infectious diseases, and women’s health surrounding pregnancy. He also possesses a background in biomedical informatics with a detailed knowledge of hardware and software in the healthcare domain.