Preventive Medicine Physicians
In short: today's best AI models could do about 25% of this job's working time (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) if the work were set up for them, and about 65% by the end of 2028 if progress keeps its long-run pace. The conversations, in-person and hands-on work, about 33% of the time, stays with people.
Apply knowledge of general preventive medicine and public health issues to promote health care to groups or individuals, and aid in the prevention or reduction of risk of disease, injury, disability, or death. May practice population-based medicine or diagnose and treat patients in the context of clinical health promotion and disease prevention.
$265,930 a year (for the broader BLS group this job sits in).
Reviewed on October 18, 2026: what each task is made of, and what handing it over would ask.
A typical 40-hour week
- AI could take on0 h
- A person checks AI's work10 h
- Desk work AI can't do yet17 h
- Stays with people13 h
Preventive Medicine Physicians, now: of a 40-hour week, AI could take on 0 hours, 10 hours become checking its work, 17 hours are desk work it can't do yet, and 13 hours stay with people.
The largest pieces: Run health surveillance (about 2 h, a person checks); Supervise professional staff (about 1 h, a person checks); Manage prevention programs (about 1 h, a person checks).
Estimates for a typical week of this job, if progress keeps its long-run pace, counting work the best models finish four times in five. Every task is below.
of the working time. Now is projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index.
- 62%
- 5%
- 27%
- 6%
- 0%
of the work: Anthropic's measure of what people already bring to Claude at work (2025). It counts help with part of a task, so it can be higher than the share within reach.
On the chosen pace and reliability. Estimate.
Share of the working time within reach, now to 2030
Change assumptionsHide assumptionsLong-run pace, four in five
What each choice means: , , , , . Every pace starts from .
At this date and pace, models finish tasks up to 2.4 work days long four times in five.
What handing it over would take, now
The 25% within reach splits by what a model would need. The dates, pace and reliability follow the controls above. Estimates.
of the working time. The material can be handed to a model and the result handed back.
of the working time. The model has to be connected to the system the work lives in.
is conversation short enough by length. This site leaves conversation with people, so it is not in the total.
How far this has come
With GPT-4, measured in March 2023, 0% of this job's working time was within reach at . With Claude 3.7 Sonnet, measured in February 2025, 0%. With Claude Mythos Preview (early), measured in April 2026, 4%. Today's estimate: 25%.
A backcast: today's task data with the best model METR had measured by each date. It shows how fast the models have moved, not what anyone forecast at the time.
Measured use over time
Of the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled and tied to a work task, no reportable share went to this job's tasks in May 2026; 0 of its 15 tasks showed up. Within each of Anthropic's methods, never across a change: 0.013% to 0.017% (released February and March 2025); 0.005% to 0.013% (August 2025 to February 2026).
Each release
| Conversations | Share | Rank | Tasks seen |
|---|---|---|---|
| Released February 2025 | 0.013% | 501 of 708 | 3 of 15 |
| Released March 2025 | 0.017% | 445 of 703 | 4 of 15 |
| The week of Aug 4, 2025 (released September 2025) | 0.005% | 531 of 655 | 2 of 15 |
| The week of Nov 13, 2025 (released January 2026) | 0.0068% | 533 of 672 | 2 of 15 |
| The week of Feb 5, 2026 (released March 2026) | 0.013% | 457 of 677 | 2 of 15 |
| April 2026 (released June 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 15 |
| May 2026 (released June 2026) | none | n/a | 0 of 15 |
Measured, not estimated: Anthropic's samples of Claude.ai conversations, each tied by a model to an O*NET task, from the Anthropic Economic Index. It says where Claude's use goes, not how much of this job's working time it covers, so it is not on the same scale as the reach above. The releases differ in their sample, their classifier and the smallest share they report (the June 2026 file rounds each task to a hundredth of a percent, so a smaller task reads as none), which is why a change of method starts a new line. At least 96% of each older release's task-tied use matched this site's tasks, and all of the newest. Claude.ai only, so use through other tools and other companies' models is not in it. Every job ranked.
Robots and the physical work
Anthropic rates almost none of this job's working time as physical work, so robots do not reach it.
Anthropic's rating, not this site's estimate: Claude Opus 5, searching the web, rated each physical O*NET task by the kind of setting in which a robot it could cite (deployed, sold or demonstrated) does most of the task, weighted by its own estimate of each task's share of the time (What work can robots do?, September 30, 2026, data CC BY 4.0; every job ranked). A robot shown somewhere is not a robot in your building: cost, setup and safety decide that. The share within reach on this page still counts no body work. The robot behind each rated task is under the task below.
What changes for the people in this job
From the task-by-task review, by the end of 2028 on the long-run pace at four in five. It says which parts of the work stay with people and which change, not whether anyone keeps a job: that depends on decisions no data set can see.
What stays with people
32% of the working time: the conversation, in-person and hands-on parts of the tasks.
- Manage prevention programs, the conversation, 7%
- Supervise professional staff, the conversation, 7%
- Direct health education programs, the conversation, 6%
- Design health delivery systems, the conversation, 4%
- Investigate disease outbreaks, the conversation, 3%
- Coordinate community health resources, the conversation, 2%
What becomes checking the machine
65% of the working time: desk work a model could do by then, in tasks where a mistake costs something or a licensed person signs. A person checks it.
- Run health surveillance, severe if wrong, 14%
- Design health delivery systems, costly if wrong, 9%
- Manage prevention programs, severe if wrong, 7%
- Investigate disease outbreaks, severe if wrong, 7%
- Direct health education programs, costly if wrong, 6%
- Evaluate interventions, costly if wrong, 5%
What to learn
- Reviewing work you did not do yourself. The tasks under What becomes checking the machine, where a mistake costs something, stay a person's to check or sign: spotting what a draft gets wrong is a skill of its own.
- Briefing a model and checking its drafts. About 62% of the time is documents and data, the part models reach first: writing a clear brief, giving the right material, and checking what comes back.
- Judgment where errors are severe. Some tasks are severe if wrong. Knowing when not to trust an output matters more there than speed.
- The conversations. About 33% of the time is conversation and in-person work, which this site leaves with people: listening, explaining, persuading, calming.
- Handling protected records. Much of the work touches protected personal records: knowing what may be shared with a model, and how, is part of the job.
Your own version of this job: read it against your job description. The headline is free; the full personal report, every task with its timeline and what to learn, is $19 (a sample).
The tasks
Sorted by . 15 tasks from .
| Task | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Direct or manage prevention programs in specialty areas such as aerospace, occupational, infectious disease, and environmental medicine.Program plans and reports, and the meetings that run them.Done daily by most who do it. | 14% | 6.7 h1.7 h to 4.2 work days | Documents 50%, conversation 50% | 20%Desk part half by Jan 2027 |
| Design or use surveillance tools, such as screening, lab reports, and vital records, to identify health risks.Designing the screening and reports and working the systems that hold them.Done daily by most who do it. | 14% | 1.7 work days3.3 h to 4.2 work days | Documents 70%, systems 30% | 31%Half by Mar 2027 |
| Design, implement, or evaluate health service delivery systems to improve the health of targeted populations.Design and evaluation on paper, with meetings to put it in place.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 14% | 4.2 work days1 work day to 3.3 work weeks | Documents 70%, conversation 30% | 4%Desk part half by Feb 2028 |
| Direct public health education programs dealing with topics such as preventable diseases, injuries, nutrition, food service sanitation, water supply safety, sewage and waste disposal, insect control, and immunizations.Program material and plans, with the people who deliver them, some in person.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 13% | 1.7 work days3.3 h to 4.2 work days | Documents 50%, conversation 30%, in person 20% | 16%Desk part half by Mar 2027 |
| Perform epidemiological investigations of acute and chronic diseases.Analysis of cases and data, with interviews and some field visits.Done more than monthly by most who do it. | 10% | 2.5 work days6.7 h to 1.7 work weeks | Documents 70%, conversation 20%, in person 10% | 12%Desk part half by Jun 2027 |
| Supervise or coordinate the work of physicians, nurses, statisticians, or other professional staff members.Conversation with the staff and the planning and review behind it.Done daily by most who do it. | 10% | 1.7 h25 min to 3.3 h | Conversation 70%, documents 30% | 30%Desk part half by now |
| Evaluate the effectiveness of prescribed risk reduction measures or other interventions.Analysis of the outcomes against the measures taken.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 5% | 1.3 work days3.3 h to 4.2 work days | Documents 100% | 44%Half by Dec 2026 |
| Prepare preventive health reports, including problem descriptions, analyses, alternative solutions, and recommendations.Writing the problem, analysis and recommendations.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 5% | 1.7 work days6.7 h to 4.2 work days | Documents 100% | 49%Half by now |
| Identify groups at risk for specific preventable diseases or injuries.Analysis of the data to find who is at risk.Done more than weekly by most who do it. | 4% | 6.7 h1.7 h to 2.1 work days | Documents 100% | 61%Half by now |
| Develop or implement interventions to address behavioral causes of diseases.Designing the intervention, with partners consulted and some sessions in person.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 3% | 2.5 work days6.7 h to 1.7 work weeks | Documents 60%, conversation 20%, in person 20% | 11%Desk part half by Jun 2027 |
| Coordinate or integrate the resources of health care institutions, social service agencies, public safety workers, or other organizations to improve community health.Calls and meetings with agencies and institutions, with the plan written.Done more than yearly by most who do it. | 3% | 6.7 h1.7 h to 2.5 work days | Conversation 70%, documents 30% | 17%Desk part half by now |
| Teach or train medical staff regarding preventive medicine issues.Sessions in the room, with material prepared.Done daily by most who do it. | 2% | 2.5 h50 min to 6.7 h | In person 70%, documents 30% | 29%Desk part half by now |
Within reach, per task: the share of the task's time whose instances are short enough for a model to finish at the chosen date, pace and reliability. Half by: the date half of that time comes within reach. Made of: how the task's time splits among five kinds of doing. Only the documents and systems parts can count as within reach, so a task that is 30% documents can be at most 30% within reach.
Jobs that share skills with this one
From O*NET's related occupations. Within reach now and by the end of 2028, long-run pace, four in five.
- Emergency Medicine Physicians42% now, 42% by 2028
- General Internal Medicine Physicians42% now, 55% by 2028
- Family Medicine Physicians38% now, 50% by 2028
- Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation Physicians40% now, 40% by 2028
- Pediatricians, General32% now, 41% by 2028
- Obstetricians and Gynecologists36% now, 47% by 2028
Where this job works
The industry groups that employ the most of it (BLS, May 2025). Counts are for the broader BLS group this job sits in.
Where the most of these jobs are
The metro areas with the most people in it (BLS, May 2025). Counts are for the broader BLS group this job sits in.
Questions about this job
- How much of the work of Preventive Medicine Physicians is within reach of AI now?
- An estimated 25% of the working time is within reach of AI models now and 65% by the end of 2028, on METR's long-run pace at four in five (55% to 67% across the three paces the site shows). Within reach means a model could finish work that long at that reliability. It is not a forecast of jobs lost or of savings.
- Which tasks of Preventive Medicine Physicians come within reach first?
- Weighted by the time each takes, the tasks with the most within reach now (projected from METR's April 2026 measurement and Epoch's November 2026 index) are: Run health surveillance (31% of the task's time now, 100% by the end of 2028); Supervise professional staff (30% of the task's time now); and Manage prevention programs (20% of the task's time now, 49% by the end of 2028).
- Which tasks of Preventive Medicine Physicians stay with people?
- Every task has a desk part, so each can come partly within reach; the conversation, in-person and hands-on parts of each task stay with people, about 33% of the working time.
- What should Preventive Medicine Physicians learn as AI takes on more of the work?
- By the job's own task-by-task review, the first things to learn are reviewing work you did not do yourself; briefing a model and checking its drafts; and judgment where errors are severe. By the end of 2028 on the long-run pace at four in five, about 32% of the working time stays with people, 65% becomes checking a model's work and 0% could be handed over with lighter checks. It says which parts of the work change, never whether anyone keeps a job.
- Do people already use AI for the work of Preventive Medicine Physicians?
- In the Claude.ai conversations Anthropic sampled for May 2026, no reportable share went to this job's tasks. Anthropic's labor market measure puts the share of the job's tasks seen in real Claude use at work at 3%. These are measures of use, not of how much of the work AI could finish, and they cover Claude only.
- Can robots do the physical work of Preventive Medicine Physicians?
- Anthropic's robot exposure rating (September 2026) finds almost none of the working time is physical work, so robots do not reach it.
- How is this estimated?
- From the 15 tasks O*NET lists for the occupation, each with an estimated length checked against GDPval and a share of the working time, reviewed one task at a time on October 18, 2026 for what each is made of (documents, business systems, conversation, in person, hands-on), and METR's measurements of how long a task the best AI models can finish, carried forward to the date from the latest, Claude Mythos Preview (early) in April 2026. Data checked November 10, 2026.
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