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Newsletter from the Population Health Informatics Program | March 2022
Newsletter from the Population Health Informatics Program| March 2022
Senior Associate Dean
Student and Academic Affairs
Message
I’m happy to see the traction and engagement the PHIIRE Club is receiving with their new speaker series. This is a great opportunity for you all to ask questions outside of the classroom and facilitate this dialogue with the PHI faculty. As always, I’m here to continue supporting you on your academic and professional journey at CUNY SPH. I wish you continued luck in your classes this semester and look forward to helping those in the fieldwork class with their innovative ideas and proposals. I also want to thank the PHIIRE Club for its efforts to engage students in the program and the CUNY SPH community.
Table of Contents
- Save the Date
- Informatics News
- Research Highlight
- Student Spotlight Series
- Student Blog
- PHIIRE Club
Up-Coming PHI Talks for Which You Should Save the Date
Intermediate Healthcare Data Analytics Course
March 17, 2022 | Deadline to Apply
Healthcare organizations increasingly rely on professionals for data-driven decision making to help guide them to strategically organize and analyze medical and healthcare-related information. This course provides knowledge and skills to improve healthcare through innovative and essential techniques that enable the delivery of efficient and quality healthcare analytics. Sign up to learn how to select, prepare, analyze, interpret, evaluate and present health data related to health system performance and effectiveness. Improve problem-solving skills and your ability to lead.
March 24, 2022 | Webinar
Engage directly and privately with employers via dynamic one-on-one web chats. Discover career development resources and interactive content in virtual employer booths. Register for the event taking place March 24, 12:00 pm – 3:30 pm ET.
2022 ONC Virtual Annual Meeting
April 13-14, 2022 | Panel Sessions, Exhibit Hall, and Networking
Join us for dynamic and engaging conversations about health IT and health equity, public health, patient access, and health information exchange.
PHI In The News
Novel Informatics Approaches to COVID-19 Research: From Methods to Applications
Started in December 2019, the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) rapidly developed into a worldwide pandemic. With the spread of the more infectious Omicron variant, over 328 million cases and 5.5 million deaths were reported globally, as of January 15th 2022 [1]. During the pandemic, unprecedented effort has been devoted to research to quickly understand transmission patterns, discover underlying molecular mechanisms, develop diagnostic tests, vaccines, and treatments, and evaluate public health policies to control COVID-19. The data-driven nature of biomedical research has made Biomedical Informatics –a discipline of developing and applying information science to biomedical problems to derive information, knowledge, and wisdom from data— very critical when combating the COVID-19 pandemic [2]. Read More
A real-time integrated framework to support clinical decision making for COVID-19 patients
The COVID-19 pandemic affected healthcare systems worldwide. Predictive models developed by Artificial Intelligence (AI) and based on timely, centralized, and standardized real world patient data could improve management of COVID-19 to achieve better clinical outcomes. The objectives of this manuscript are to describe the structure and technologies used to construct a COVID-19 Data Mart architecture and to present how a large hospital has tackled the challenge of supporting daily management of COVID-19 pandemic emergency, by creating a strong retrospective knowledge base, a real time environment and integrated information dashboard for daily practice and early identification of critical condition at patient level. This framework is also used as an informative, continuously enriched data lake, which is a base for several on-going predictive studies. The information technology framework for clinical practice and research was described. It was developed using SAS Institute software analytics tool and SAS® Vyia® environment and Open-Source environment R ® and Python ® for fast prototyping and modeling. The included variables and the source extraction procedures were presented. Read More
Highlights
Data science approaches to confronting the COVID-19 pandemic: a narrative review
During the COVID-19 pandemic, more than ever, data science has become a powerful weapon in combating an infectious disease epidemic and arguably any future infectious disease epidemic. Computer scientists, data scientists, physicists and mathematicians have joined public health professionals and virologists to confront the largest pandemic in the century by capitalizing on the large-scale ‘big data’ generated and harnessed for combating the COVID-19 pandemic. In this paper, we review the newly born data science approaches to confronting COVID-19, including the estimation of epidemiological parameters, digital contact tracing, diagnosis, policy-making, resource allocation, risk assessment, mental health surveillance, social media analytics, drug repurposing and drug development. We compare the new approaches with conventional epidemiological studies, discuss lessons we learned from the COVID-19 pandemic, and highlight opportunities and challenges of data science approaches to confronting future infectious disease epidemics. Read More
Student Spotlight
Mengting Wang is in her last year of the MS Population Health Informatics Program at CUNY SPH. She is originally from China and grew up there. When she was 25, she immigrated to the U.S.A. Living in New York City allowed her to experience a mix of culture, religion, food, and ideas, but it also showed her daily health disparities in this great city. She has been working in a non-profit health insurance company, and every day she assists lots of members who are mostly new immigrants to deal with billings, benefits, and claims. The working and living experiences in NYC brought her to the public health field. She felt that residents in Queens had limited English, and they needed more support and assistance. Therefore, she decided to change her major in China and start a new major in U.S.A. Pursuing PopHI program is beneficial to her work and understanding the American health disparities. She looks forward to graduating and applying her professional knowledge to her job. Visualizing health data and analyzing health inequalities issues are her desire in the future.
Blog Series
Review of Dr. Williams Talk
Karmen S. Williams is an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management. She completed a post-doctorate fellowship in public and population health informatics at Indiana University and Regenstrief Institute. Her research focused on systemic informatics integration projects such as Patient-Centered Data Homes and dental and medical record integration. Dr. Williams is also actively involved in the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), where she is the Co-Chair of the Pipeline Subcommittee in the Women in AMIA, Chair of the Dental Informatics Working Group, and Director of ‘For Your Informatics’, a podcast that explores the limitless world of medical informatics. This podcast is led by the Women in AMIA, and showcases people in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and informatics, and discusses topics relevant to success in these fields. Dr. Williams is passionate about increasing representation in STEM at the system level in all areas of informatics.
Highlights from talk
Informatics:
“The science of processing data for storage and retrieval.” “The collection, classification, storage, retrieval, and dissemination of recorded knowledge.”
BMI Areas Include:
- Health Informatics
- Clinical Informatics
- Medical Informatics
- Public Health Informatics
- Consumer Health Informatics
- Data Science
Where can your MS degree take you?
Types of Positions: Nursing Informatics Officer, Information Research Scientists, Healthcare IT project manager
Median Salary Range (2017): $80,000 – $114,520
Interested in learning more:
For Your Informatics Podcast- https://amia.org/news-publications/podcasts/for-your-informatics
American Medical Informatics Association- https://amia.org/
American Health Information Management Association: https://ahima.org/
Healthcare Information and Management Systems Society: https://www.himss.org/
International Medical Informatics Association: https://imia-medinfo.org/wp/
Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research & Education
P.H.I.I.R.E Club
On March 12, 2022 the PHIIRE Club hosted their first event for the Spring 2022 semester with the beginning of a speaker series kicked off by Dr. Williams. We thank her again for taking the time on a Saturday morning to share her experience and research in the developing field of population health informatics. She also took the opportunity to answer questions students had about her research, career opportunities, and professional development organizations. A link to the recording of the event via youtube can be found below:
There are two main events planned for the Spring semester. Our aim was to host this speaker series to introduce you to the PHI faculty and facilitate a dialogue between faculty and students outside the classroom. If you have any questions, please email phiireclub@gmail.com, if you’re interested in learning about the PHIIRE Club and how you can get involved in the club’s activities.
Please Stay Tuned for Updates!
Join us
- To submit your contributions to this newsletter, contact rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu
- Submit content here!
- To join the PHIIRE Club, contact phiireclub@gmail.com
- Visit Our Website
- Join the PHIIRE Club
Newsletter from the Population Health Informatics Program | February 2022
Population Health Informatics Program | February 2022
Senior Associate Dean
Student and Academic Affairs
Message
Welcome new and current students to the Master of Population Health Informatics program for the Spring 2022 semester! We are here to continue supporting you on your academic and professional journey. As this semester starts, I wish you luck in your classes and for those of you doing fieldwork look forward to helping you scale your ideas. Among other news, I also want to thank the new PHIIRE executive committee for taking the lead for the Spring 2022 semester, looking forward to seeing the events you host for our students.
Table of Contents
- Save the Date
- Informatics News
- Research Highlight
- Global Health Informatics Tool
- Student Spotlight Series
- PHIIRE Club
Up-Coming PHI Talks for Which You Should Save the Date
Workforce Skills and Career Growth Open House
February 16, 2022 | Webinar
HIMSS-SIIM Enterprise Imaging Community Roundtable
February 24, 2022 | Webinar
PHI In The News
The aim of this review is to address emerging challenges that came to light during the pandemic in health care and innovations that enabled us to adapt and continue to care for patients. The pandemic highlighted the need for seismic shifts in care paradigms and technology with considerations related to the digital divide and health literacy for digital health interventions to reach full potential and improve health outcomes. We discuss advances in telemedicine, remote patient monitoring, and emerging wearable technologies. Despite the promise of digital health, we emphasize the importance of addressing its limitations, including interpretation challenges, accuracy of findings, and artificial intelligence–driven algorithms. Finally, we propose a model for optimal implementation of health digital innovations with 5 tenets including data management, data security, digital biomarkers, useful artificial intelligence, and clinical integration. Read More
Mass vaccination campaigns have significantly reduced the COVID-19 burden. However, vaccine hesitancy has posed significant global concerns. The purpose of this study was to determine the characteristics that influence perceptions of COVID-19 vaccine efficacy, acceptability, hesitancy, and decision making to take vaccine among general adult populations in a variety of socioeconomic and cultural contexts. Using a snowball sampling approach, we conducted an online cross-sectional study in 20 countries across four continents from February to May 2021. A total of 10,477 participants were included in the analyses with a mean age of 36±14.3 years. The findings revealed the prevalence of perceptions towards COVID-19 vaccine’s effectiveness (78.8%), acceptance (81.8%), hesitancy (47.2%), and drivers of vaccination decision-making (convenience [73.3%], health providers’ advice [81.8%], and costs [57.0%]). Read More
Highlights
Visual communication strategies are becoming increasingly prevalent for conveying information to health professionals as well as to the general public. The potential of social media for rapid knowledge dissemination using infographics was recognized early in the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic by health professionals. The purpose of this study was to describe a coalition of health professionals’ approach to developing infographics about COVID-19 vaccines and the reach and engagement of those infographics when shared through social media. Infographics were created by a core team within the coalition following a stepwise approach. Each underwent a multistep review process, readability evaluation, and translation into Spanish. Infographics were then shared through multiple social media platforms. They were grouped into 1 of 3 categories for this analysis: COVID-19 vaccine series, myth debunkers, or other. All infographics had greater outreach, impressions, and engagement on Twitter than they did on other platforms. Read More
Global Health Informatics Tool
Data Wrapper is a free data tool to help everyone create charts, maps and tables with no coding or design skills required. Below you will some visualizations of NYC COVID-19 daily cases, hospitalizations, and deaths at the start of the pandemic in March 2020.
Figure 1. NYC temporal trends regarding COVID-19 daily counts of cases from March through September.
Figure 2. Temporal trends regarding COVID-19 related hospitalizations in NYC from March through October.
Figure 3. Temporal trends regarding COVID-19 related deaths in NYC from March through October.
Interested in submitting your own visualizations, email rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu.
**Visualizations generated via Datawrapper for EPID 634
Student Recognitions
Alumni Spotlight
Congratulations to Rafaela Villacres, MS Population Health Informatic Spring 2021 graduate, for starting her new position at NYC Health and Hospitals as a clinical business analyst. She is currently working for the vaccine outreach team in support of the T2 initiative (Test and Trace). She uses SQL and excel, skills she developed in the EPID 700 (PHI fieldwork class). The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, in collaboration with other city institutions, acted in concerted response with NYC’s Test and Trace (T2) team when the COVID-19 vaccines became available in early 2021. The T2 team began a concentrated phone outreach effort to connect New Yorkers across all 5 boroughs to vaccine education and appointments. She works with data provided by the Department of Mental Health and Hygiene (DOMH), Citizen Immunization Registry (CIR), Department of Aging (DFTA), and voter files for the state of New York. She creates queries and visualizations that serve to provide insights into the successes and gaps of the vaccine campaigns to inform public policy changes and improve outreach efforts. Through the following, stakeholders, public health professionals, policymakers, and the public can have access to real-time population health data to assess vaccine access, uptake, hesitancy, and outcomes.
Congratulations to Rafaela Villacres!
Student Spotlight
Ghazal Khaqan is in her last semester of the MS Population Health Informatics Program at CUNY SPH. She is currently serving as the vice president of the PHIIRE Club for the Spring 2022 semester.
“I found out about the PopHI program after I graduated with a bachelor’s in biology in 2020. I was interested in enrolling in this program not only because I wanted to switch my field, but also because I found out that I am a lot more interested in the informatics side of public health. My interest in public health was sparked after I completed an internship with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene during my junior year of college.
Currently, I am working as a Resource Navigator with the Research Foundation at CUNY, and I help New Yorkers who are under quarantine, isolate safely by helping them access resources for food, medication, health insurance, and many more. Shortly after beginning this master’s program, I have also worked as a Student Food Navigator with Swipe Out Hunger, where I helped CUNY students apply for SNAP (and other benefit programs) and helped them access additional food resources provided through their neighborhood/community and campuses. While I do not have work experience directly in the field, in the future I am interested in working with mHealth apps and their development.”
Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research & Education
PHIIRE Club
We’re excited to announce the PHIIRE Executive Council for the
Spring 2022 Semester!!
President: Sadaf Ahmad
Vice President: Ghazal Khaqan
Treasurer: Melissa Ditmore
PHIIRE Ambassador: Rafaela Villacres
President
“Welcome to the Spring 2022 semester. I encourage you to join the club and participate in the upcoming events that we have lined up. More details will be shared soon. Hope you all have a successful semester!”- Sadaf
Vice President
“Welcome to PopHI! I encourage you all to join the PHIIRE club and participate in our events not only so we all can learn new things from each other but also have fun at the same time!” – Ghazal
Treasurer
“Everyone interested in population health informatics is welcome to all PHIIRE club events. Come for networking, stay for camaraderie!” – Melissa
Ambassador
I want to thank the new PHIIRE Executive Council for continuing this initiative that was started in Spring 2021. It’s going to be a year in March that the PHIIRE Club was founded so I encourage all new and current population health informatic students to play their part in supporting the club!! I wish you all success in this upcoming semester and look forward to working with you to scale the PHIIRE club and the population health informatics program. To those of you graduating this semester, best of luck and I look forward to you participating as an alumni ambassador! – Rafaela
There are two main events planned for the Spring semester. We’re planning on hosting a speaker series where we bring in the new PHI faculty to share their experiences in the field of population health informatics. Please stay tuned for that! This is an opportunity to come with questions regarding career opportunities, professional development organizations, Ph.D. programs, among others. If you have any questions, please email phiireclub@gmail.com, if you’re interested in learning about the PHIIRE Club and how you can get involved in the club’s activities.
Please Stay Tuned for Updates!
Join us
- To submit your contributions to this newsletter, contact rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu
- Submit content here!
- To join the PHIIRE Club, contact phiireclub@gmail.com
- Visit Our Website
- Join the PHIIRE Club
Newsletter from the Population Health Informatics Program | January 2022
Population Health Informatics Program | January 2022
Ashish Joshi, Phd, MBBS, MPH
Senior Associate Dean
Student and Academic Affairs
Message
Welcome new and current students to the Master of Population Health Informatics program for the Spring 2022 semester! The faculty and I want to thank you all for joining us for another semester at CUNY SPH! We are here to continue supporting you on your academic and professional journey at CUNY SPH and beyond. For those of you who graduated in the Fall 2021 semester congratulations on your impressive achievement and good luck in your future endeavors. We look forward to celebrating you at the June 2022 Commencement Ceremony.
As this semester starts, I wish you luck in your classes and for those of you doing fieldwork look forward to helping you scale your ideas. Please be on the lookout for activities the PHIIRE Club hosts this semester to address public health challenges with an informatics lens. The PHIIREATHON: Addressing COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy Event was the first of many initiatives proposed to encourage you to think out-of-the-box to propose, conceptualize, and deliver small scale evidence-based interventions to those who need it most.
Table of Contents
- Save the Date
- Informatics News
- Research Highlight
- Student Spotlight Series
- Student Blog
- PHIIRE Club
Up-Coming PHI Talks for Which You Should Save the Date
January 14, 2022 | Event
The New Clinical Research Paradigm Post-COVID-19 and Beyond
January 27, 2022 | Webinar
PHI In The News
This study aims (1) to identify risk issues relating to the rapid development and redeployment of COVID-19 related e-health systems, in primary care, and in the health ecosystems interacting with it and (2) to suggest evidence-based evaluation directions under emergency response. Peer-review publications, reports, news sources, and websites that credibly identified the challenges relating digital health scaled for COVID-19 were scrutinized. Studies satisfying the selection criteria were charted based on their study design, primary care focus, and coverage of e-health areas of risk. Five identified digital health risk areas associated with the pandemic were governance, system design and coordination, information access, service provision, and user (professional and public) reception. We observed that rapid digital health responses may embed challenges in health system thinking, the long-term development of digital health ecosystems, and interoperability of health IT infrastructure, with concomitant weaknesses in existing evaluation theories. Read More
We aimed to investigate how distancing-enabling information and communications technology (ICT) infrastructure and medical ICT infrastructure, and related policies have affected the cumulative number of confirmed cases, fatality rate, and initial speed of transmission across different countries. We analyzed the determinants of COVID-19 transmission during the relatively early days of the pandemic by conducting regression analysis based on our data for country-level characteristics, including demographics, culture, ICT infrastructure, policies, economic status, and transmission of COVID-19. Our full sample analysis showed that implied telehealth policy, which refers to the lack of a specific telehealth-related policy but the presence of a general eHealth policy, was associated with lower fatality rates when controlled for cultural characteristics (P=.004). Read More
Highlights
To highlight the role of technology assessment in the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. Evaluation of digital health technologies for COVID-19 should be based on their technical maturity as well as the scale of implementation. For mature technologies like telehealth whose efficacy has been previously demonstrated, pragmatic, rapid evaluation using the complex systems paradigm which accounts for multiple socio-technical factors, might be more suitable to examine their effectiveness and emerging safety concerns in new settings. New technologies, particularly those intended for use on a large scale such as digital contract tracing, will require assessment of their usability as well as performance prior to deployment, after which evaluation should shift to using a complex systems paradigm to examine the value of the information provided. Read More
Student Recognitions
Ideation and Innovation
Congratulations to Rafael Escobar, MS Population Health Informatic Fall 2021 graduate, for starting his new position at ICAP at Columbia, currently involved in supporting HIV Coverage, Quality, and Impact Network (CQUIN) projects in four countries in Africa by building dashboards using Microsoft Power BI. Data provided by the countries generally regard Differentiated Service Delivery (DSD), and the dashboards provide insights into successes and gaps in care for HIV patients. CUNY SPH and the PHI program has given him great insights into the utilization of technology to support healthy outcomes for this population, while also providing me an opportunity to share my education to support more standardized data collection and reporting (dashboards). It is intended that implementing new standardized methods would facilitate the timely dissemination of information and provide capacity for under-resourced countries to build their dashboards tailored to their data sources and needs.
The work for the new position falls quite closely with lessons learned at CUNY SPH. Utilizing technology for capacity building and timely dissemination of important information has been the cornerstone for my PHI education. While the software may differ from what was learned during the PHI program, the main principles still apply and have made the transition more approachable due to familiarity.
Congratulations to Rafael Escobar!
Alumni Spotlight
Rafael Escobar is from Vermont, he graduated from Castleton University with a bachelor’s in health science and Minor in Chemistry. Once he moved to NYC around 2015, he began as a Pharmacy Technician with aspirations of continuing his education due to his desire for advancing professionally but aimed more towards public health in general. CUNY SPH allowed him to pursue a Master of Science in Population Health Informatics while working full time. The program made transitioning into the public health field possible through supportive professors and the ability to tailor his online learning schedule to his needs. CUNY SPH helped by developing key insights into aspects public health research and gaining knowledge into valuable PHI tools and approaches. He started his job search in his last semester and discovered the vast need for PHI specialist. A PHI perspective is so valuable that he accepted an offer at ICAP at Columbia University as a Health Information Specialist before graduation. His experience before CUNY SPH would not have been sufficient for the position, yet after presenting coursework that was completed from various classes in the program, he became a top contender for the position. CUNY SPH gave him the knowledge base to stand out above other candidates for the position.
Student Blog
On Monday, January 10, 2022, an information session was held for interested students to know about the fieldwork class EPID 700 required for the Population Health Informatics degree. This fieldwork class is different from the other fieldwork options as it provides weekly workshops that will help build skills that can be utilized for your project. Dr. Joshi recommends all students to have a meeting with him even if they have not registered for this class yet to discuss their interests and how they can incorporate it as their final project idea, or you could work at a fieldwork site to obtain your 180 hours. More information about the fieldwork sites can be obtained from the office of Experiential Learning: oel@sph.cuny.edu. Some examples of the topics covered in this course are:
The meeting recording can be found here:
To schedule a meeting with Dr. Joshi please email him at ashish.joshi@sph.cuny.edu and cc Ingrid.kalemi@sph.cuny.edu to discuss your project idea and fieldwork options.
Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research & Education
P.H.I.I.R.E Club
The PHIIRE Club, Dr. Joshi, the faculty advisor, and Rafaela Villacres, alumni, and Co-founder of PBC Labs hosted on Saturday, December 18, 2021, a post feedback session for the winner of the PHIIREATHON Event Navkaran Singh. The PHIIRE Club had the opportunity to invite members of PBC Labs to help evaluate Navkaran’s COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy App. PBC Labs has experience in UX and UI Design, mobile health and game development, and user research and survey management. The follow-up event was a success, we appreciate Navkaran Singh’s and PBC Labs participation and engagement.
Below you’ll find a recording of the feedback session for the PHIIREATHON event, where members of the PHIIRE Club and PBC Labs helped evaluate and provide feedback for Navkaran’s innovative idea to tackle COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy amongst our communities:
LOOKING FOR 2022 SPRING CABINET POSITIONS!!
Pending Election Date Saturday 11:30 am
We’re looking to fill positions for President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary for the Spring-Fall 2022 academic year. This is your opportunity to be a part of the PHIIRE executive committee, a group of passionate, driven, and committed students who have a shared interest in bringing the informatics field to the forefront starting in an academic setting. We will be hosting an election at the end of the semester to nominate individuals for cabinet positions and recruit new members. We hope to see you there!
If you have any questions, please email phiireclub@gmail.com, if you’re interested in learning about the PHIIRE Club and how you can get involved in the club’s activities.
Please Stay Tuned for Updates!
Join us
- To submit your contributions to this newsletter, contact rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu
- Submit content here!
- To join the PHIIRE Club, contact phiireclub@gmail.com
- Visit Our Website
- Join the PHIIRE Club
Newsletter for the Population Health Informatics program | December 2021
Population Health Informatics Program | December 2021
Message
Senior Associate Dean
Student and Academic Affairs
Congratulations Master of Population Health Informatic students on completing another semester at CUNY SPH! The faculty and I are happy to have assisted you on this journey and look forward to helping you continue your academic and professional goals next semester. For those of you graduating this semester congratulations on your impressive achievement and good luck in your future endeavors.
As the semester comes to an end, I hope you’re all doing well in your classes, and good luck with your finals! I’m happy to have assisted the PHIIRE Club in creating the first PHIIREATHON: An Innovation to Ideation Impact Event. We want to create other events where we can address public health challenges with an informatics lens. My goal is to help foster this out-of-the-box thinking amongst you all to propose, conceptualize, and deliver small-scale evidence-based interventions to those who need it most. I look forward to hearing from you and helping you scale your ideas!
Table of Contents
- Save the Date
- Informatics News
- Research Highlight
- Global Health Informatics Tool
- Student Spotlight Series
- PHIIRE Club
UPCOMING PHI TALKS FOR WHICH YOU SHOULD SAVE THE DATE
The Benefits of Networking and Volunteering
December 15, 2021 | Webinar
December 16, 2021 | Workshop
January 14, 2022 | Event
PHI In The News
The Role of Imaging Informatics in Disaster Preparedness During the COVID-19 Pandemic
In November 2019, an outbreak caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) first identified in Wuhan, China, was declared to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern by the World Health Organization in January 2020. Subsequently, the infection spread rapidly throughout the globe, and coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was recognized as a pandemic in March 2020. As of June 18, 2020, approximately 8.41 million cases of COVID have been reported in 188 countries resulting in approximately 450,000 deaths [1].
Initially, most radiologists focused on the role of imaging in diagnosing COVID-19 [2]. However, as an understanding of the disease process grew, they began to recognize that radiographic and CT findings must be evaluated together with the clinical presentation and additional diagnostic tests such as reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) for viral RNA to confidently diagnose COVID-19. In parallel, most radiology practices also began to focus not only on diagnostic capability but also disaster preparedness. Read More
Public attitudes toward COVID-19 vaccines on English-language Twitter: A sentiment analysis
To identify themes and temporal trends in the sentiment of COVID-19 vaccine-related tweets and to explore variations in sentiment at world national and United States state levels. We collected English-language tweets related to COVID-19 vaccines posted between November 1, 2020, and January 31, 2021. We applied the Valence Aware Dictionary and sEntiment Reasoner tool to calculate the compound score to determine whether the sentiment mentioned in each tweet was positive (compound ≥ 0.05), neutral (-0.05 < compound < 0.05), or negative (compound ≤ -0.05). We applied the latent Dirichlet allocation analysis to extract main topics for tweets with positive and negative sentiment. Then we performed a temporal analysis to identify time trends and a geographic analysis to explore sentiment differences in tweets posted in different locations.
Out of a total of 2,678,372 COVID-19 vaccine-related tweets, tweets with positive, neutral, and negative sentiments were 42.8%, 26.9%, and 30.3%, respectively. We identified five themes for positive sentiment tweets (trial results, administration, life, information, and efficacy) and five themes for negative sentiment tweets (trial results, conspiracy, trust, effectiveness, and administration). On November 9, 2020, the sentiment score increased significantly (score = 0.234, p = 0.001), then slowly decreased to a neutral sentiment in late December and was maintained until the end of January. Read More
Highlights
A pilot evaluation of Swasthya Pahal program using SMAART informatics framework to support NCD self-management
- Empirical research acknowledges the capability of mHealth and eHealth interventions for ensuring high-quality and tailored healthcare to individuals. People living with various health conditions get access to a wide range of healthcare services through digital interventions. The aim of the study is to examine the usefulness of Swasthya Pahal, a community-based Health for all program, aimed to enhance screening and self-management of diabetes, hypertension, and obesity among police personnel.
Informatics Tool
Using Tableau to Visually Display COVID-19 Data
By: Rafaela Villacres
Tableau is a visual analytics platform transforming the way we use data to solve problems—empowering people and organizations to make the most of their data. Tableau’s foundational technology, VizQL—which visually expresses data by translating drag-and-drop actions into data queries through an intuitive interface. This includes making machine learning, statistics, natural language, and smart data prep more useful to augment human creativity in analysis.
Background
The coronavirus pandemic has led to a breadth of information visualization systems displaying COVID-19 cases and deaths per country in real-time to provide the necessary population health data needed to drive evidence-based decision-making. The software Tableau can be leveraged to visually display COVID-19 data allowing stakeholders, policymakers, and the public to generate their own insights from the data in an understandable way more efficiently than text. Thus, enabling them to make informed decisions regarding COVID-19 preventative measures and allocating resources.
Based on Figure 3, the countries that are seeing the greatest changes in the 7-day average of total COVID-19 cases is leading with Jordan (n=70.82), followed by Myanmar (n=60.27), Georgia (n=53.99), and Tunisia (n=48.03). The data was also clustered separately to show trends which yielded four clusters and their respective averages for the 7-day average change of total cases. Cluster 4 which contains the countries Jordan, Myanmar, Georgia, and Tunisia yielded 55.59 for the average sum of 7-day average change of total cases. Most countries on the map (n=132), such as the United States, Brazil, and Russia are seeing 2.21 for the average sum of 7-day average change of total COVID-19 cases.
Interested in submitting your own visualizations, email rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu.
**Visualizations generated via Tableau for EPID 634
Student Recognitions
Ideation and Innovation
Navkaran Singh participated in the first PHIIREATHON Event with his COVID-19 Vaccine Literacy App Idea. He was awarded a $500 stipend on behalf of the PHIIRE Club for his participation and efforts. By using the app provided by Datacubed Navkaran and his team were able to create COVID-19 vaccine educational modules that contained the latest resources on the COVID-19 vaccines, such as what vaccines are and how they work, the immune system, how to book appointments for vaccination, and how to combat misinformation. These modules consisted of weekly objectives that were followed with educational materials that were available in different mediums and were followed by a quiz to gauge knowledge and sentiments about the COVID-19 vaccine. The aim of this was to empower our participants to become vaccine champions that will help their community in answering questions, help book appointments for the vaccine, and become a resource for COVID-19 vaccines.
Congratulations to Navkaran Singh!!
Student Spotlight
Navkaran Singh is currently pursuing his Master of Public Health in Health Policy and Management and for his capstone, with CONVINCE he has designed vaccine literacy educational modules which are being deployed on an app-based game. Navkaran has completed medical school and practiced as a physician in India, where he would focus on community outreach, health education, and delivering the best care for his patients. Navkaran is interested in improving the quality of care for patients while also creating a better healthcare environment for providers. While not working, Navkaran is an avid traveler, photographer and likes to cook.
Student Blog
Food Insecurity in New York City: A Cost-of-Living Crisis
By: Erica Rowe Owen
While never welcome, the coming round of food inflation will be especially tough. As the pandemic wrought havoc on the global economy, it ushered in new concerns about hunger and malnutrition, even in the world’s wealthiest countries(1). The COVID-19 pandemic has tested the capacity of the U.S. safety net to meet the urgent needs of families with children. Even prior to COVID-19, 1.9 million New Yorkers were experiencing food insecurity, including one in five children(2). Data from the Census Bureau showed that the pandemic has only exacerbated the city’s hunger crisis, particularly for families of color.
Lower-income populations may be particularly vulnerable to less-healthy food acquisitions when they face high costs of living(3). In NYC alone, close to 46% of households with children reported difficulties paying their usual expenses such as food and housing. Additionally, some adult members of these households were impacted in that they decreased their food intake to minimize the impact on the children. Low-income Americans faced with food insecurity often engage in economic trade-offs—for example, sacrificing their food budgets to pay for major living expenditures, such as rent or medical bills. High area-level cost of living may have a substantial impact on household budgets and, therefore, forcing such economic trade-offs(3).
1. Cadman E, Shanker D, Patton L, Wells C. Food Prices Are Soaring Faster Than Inflation and Incomes. Bloomberg Wealth [Internet]. 2021 February 28. Available from: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-03-01/inflation-2021-malnutrition-and-hunger-fears-rise-as-food-prices-soar-globally.
2. Feeding New York City Families: Keeping Track of Food Insecurity in 2021. New York: CCCNewYork.org; 2021.
3. Basu S, Wimer C, Seligman H. Moderation of the Relation of County-Level Cost of Living to Nutrition by the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. American Journal of Public Health, 106(11). 2016:2064-70.
Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research and Education
PHIIRE Club
The PHIIRE Club, Dr. Joshi, the faculty advisor, and Rafaela Villacres, alumni, and Co-founder of PBC Labs hosted PHIIREATHON: An Ideation to Innovation Impact Event to Address COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy taking place on Friday, November 19, 2021. The event was a success, we appreciate Navkaran Singh’s participation and engagement. He was awarded a $500 stipend for his vaccine literacy app.
His idea aligned with the PHIIRE club’s mission to empower and foster students’ creative, critical thinking, and technological skills to propose innovative digital health approaches using informatics principles to tackle the public health challenges that arise as a result of COVID-19 and beyond.
Below you’ll find a recording of the PHIIREATHON event, where you’ll learn about all our different backgrounds and Navkaran’s innovative idea to tackle COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy amongst our communities:
Looking for Spring 2021 Candidates for PHIIRE Executive Positions
Tentative Election Date Saturday 12/18/2021 @ 11:30 am
We’re looking to fill positions for President, Vice President, Treasurer, and Secretary for the Spring-Fall 2022 academic year. This is your opportunity to be a part of the PHIIRE executive committee, a group of passionate, driven, and committed students who have a shared interest in bringing the informatics field to the forefront starting in an academic setting. We will be hosting an election at the end of the semester to nominate individuals for cabinet positions and recruit new members. We hope to see you there!
If you have any questions, please email phiireclub@gmail.com, if you’re interested in learning about the PHIIRE Club and how you can get involved in the club’s activities.
Please Stay Tuned For Updates!
Join us
- To submit your contributions to this newsletter, contact rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu
- Submit content here!
- To join the PHIIRE Club, contact phiireclub@gmail.com
- Visit Our Website
- Join the PHIIRE Club
Newsletter from the Population Health Informatics Program | November 2021
Population Health Informatics Program |
November 2021
Senior Associate Dean
Student and Academic Affairs
Message
As the semester comes to an end, I hope you are all doing well in your classes, and good luck on your finals! I’m proud to have assisted the PHIIRE Club in creating the first PHIIREATHON: An Innovation to Ideation Impact Event to Address COVID-19 Vaccine hesitancy, hopefully, one of many events that will help address timely public health challenges with innovative digital health approaches with an informatics lens. That is my goal to help foster this out-of-the-box thinking amongst you all to propose, conceptualize, and deliver small-scale evidence-based interventions to those who need it most. I look forward to hearing from you and helping you scale your ideas to help tackle the public health challenges that arise post-COVID-19 and beyond.
Table of Contents
- Save the Date
- Informatics News
- Research Highlight
- Global Health Informatics Tool
- Student Spotlight Series
- PHIIRE Club
Upcoming PHI Talks for Which You Should Save the Date
NSF Human-Technology Interface Series: Pathways to Products for Lifelong Learning Workshops
November 16, 2021 | Webinar
November 17, 2021 | Webinar
November 17. 2021 | Webinar
Beyond COVID-19: Embracing Digital Health as the New Norm
November 21-23, 2021 | Digital Event
PHI In the News
We introduce a novel agent-based model where each agent carries an effective viral load that captures the instantaneous state of infection of the agent. We simulate the spread of a pandemic and subsequently validate it by using publicly available COVID-19 data. Our simulation tracks the temporal evolution of a virtual city or community of agents in terms of contracting infection, recovering asymptomatically, or getting hospitalized. Agents interact with other agents in virtual public places like at grocery stores, on public transportation and in offices. We initially seed the virtual community with a very small number of infected individuals and then monitor the disease spread and hospitalization over a period of fifty days, which is a reasonable time-frame for the initial spread of a pandemic. Read More
Data Interpretation and visualization of COVID-19 cases using R programming
Data analysis and visualization are essential for exploring and communicating medical research findings, especially when working with COVID records. Data on COVID-19 diagnosed cases and deaths from December 2019 is collected automatically from www.statista.com, datahub.io, and the Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI). We have developed an application for data visualization and analysis of several indicators to follow the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic using Statista, Data Hub, and MDPI data from densely populated countries like the United States, Japan, and India using R programming. Read More
Highlights
An Evidence-Based Approach on Academic Management in a School of Public Health Using SMAART Model
- Data-driven modeling, action, and strategies have become popular, and the education community has witnessed increased interest in data-driven decision-making (DDDM). DDDM values and prioritizes decisions supported by high-quality, verifiable data that has been effectively processed and analyzed. The objective of our study is to describe the design, development, and implementation of a data-driven, evidence-based model of academic development in the context of CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy (CUNY SPH) utilizing SMAART (Sustainability Multisector Accessible Affordable Reimbursable Tailored) model. The alignment of academic and student affairs within CUNY SPH brought with it several challenges. Defining roles and responsibilities across different student and academic affair units with a goal of collaborative leadership model and lack of meaningfulness were key challenges. Read More
Global Health Informatics Visualizations
Low Birth Weight
By: Sadaf Ahmad
ArcGIS is a cloud-based mapping and analysis solution. You can create maps, analyze data, and share. ArcGIS itself has data available but also allows data to be imported as well. This software provides step-by-step instructions and tutorials to create maps at Learn ArcGIS making it easy to understand how to use it. Creating policy maps is essential to solving geographical-based problems. It allows an immediate snapshot of the current conditions of a location.
This map shows the States with high rates of low birth weight infants via the intensity of the purple color. The darkest state here in Mississippi with a 12.1% rate as compared to 8.3% nationally.
This map shows the priority counties in Mississippi where immediate healthcare interventions should be taken. This policy map can further be distributed to governmental and non-governmental agencies to address the public health concern of low birthweight babies. The arrows represent the Black to White population ratio so that racial inequities can be addressed in creating healthy outcomes for maternal health in Mississippi.
Last Accessed November 10, 2021
Interested in submitting your own visualizations, email rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu.
Student Recognitions
Ideation and Innovation
Rafaela Villacres graduated in June 2021 and for her fieldwork practicum, she worked alongside Dr. Joshi as a graduate research assistant. The intent of her study was to design, develop, and conduct a system evaluation of an online population health informatics resource platform that would act as a resource for students keen on pursuing a career in population health informatics research, innovation, and training. This study is testing the hypothesis that the platform designed using student feedback can enhance its adoption and result in greater usage.
She used a human-centered design (HCD) approach which entails conducting a user, task, and requirement analysis to determine the user’s needs, and identifying the various features students would like to see. Based on the responses generated a new mockup was developed using user feedback, and the most common elements identified were included in this iteration. [Figures 1,2] Once the working prototype was available, a usability evaluation was conducted on the platform to test whether the platform met the students’ needs.
The elements considered of great importance and value were a list of PHI hiring organizations, fieldwork, and internship opportunities, research projects, software tutorials, information on informatics tools/technologies, workshops, and training opportunities. The system usability scale survey generated a usability score of 77, equivalent to a B+, reflecting the user’s effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction in using the interface.
The population health informatics resource platform was found to be a valuable resource for the student’s academic and career needs. Future studies will aim to conduct better outreach efforts to generate a larger sample size. Student recommendations and suggestions will be incorporated in a future iteration of the working prototyping to ensure that the platform grows with the needs of the population.
If you haven’t already you can visit CUNY SPH’s MS Population Health Informatics Program website at Global Population Health Informatics.
Student Spotlight
Sadaf Ahmad is serving as the Treasurer of the PHIIRE club and is currently in her second last semester pursuing her MS in Population Health Informatics. She believes this club is an initiative to invite more people into the realm of informatics where providing quality and relevant data for the users is of utmost importance. She cites the population health informatic courses as insightful since they emphasize the importance of health literacy and how data can be converted into useful and targeted information for consumers.
Being a mother herself her interest is in maternal health. With the knowledge and skills gained from the program, she would like to focus on incorporating technology to overcome social, economic, and geographical barriers to provide quality health services to mothers, especially in developing countries.
Student Blog
A natural language processing pipeline to advance the use of Twitter data for digital epidemiology of adverse pregnancy outcomes: A Brief Review
By: Melissa Ditmore
In this issue of the PHIIRE club newsletter, I will summarize a 2020 paper that looked at publicly available data from 8109 users of Twitter.com to assess its usefulness for epidemiology. The authors focused on birth defects and looked at preceding posts about pregnancy. They noted that in cases of delayed prenatal care, miscarriages may occur before any prenatal appointments, and so these miscarriages would not be recorded in traditional public health data like electronic health records; therefore some of the social media posts about miscarriage may be the only record of some miscarriages. This makes social media a potentially important source of otherwise lost data.
Their methods were of interest to informatics students, including the use of “natural language” data, the annotation of the tweets from over 8000 accounts identified, and how the team determined whether automatic annotation could be useful and when, in part to code “adverse pregnancy outcomes” reported in tweets as “outcome tweets,” and error analysis. These required confirmations – in some cases, for example, the event described was when a pet rather than a person had a miscarriage or stillbirth, and that would have been coded as a “non-outcome tweet.” The team developed four filters to address what they call reported speech or something that may not have originated with the owner of the account because they focused on reports of first-hand experiences of adverse outcomes of pregnancy, rather than reports related to another person’s pregnancy or something else. Their four-level filter successfully cut down the time needed for annotation and correction.
Findings were summarized saying:
“(1) women do report their miscarriage, stillbirth, preterm birth, premature labor, low birth weight, and NICU admission outcomes on Twitter, (2) tweets reporting users’ adverse pregnancy outcomes can be automatically detected, (3) reported speech can introduce challenges for training machine learning algorithms to detect user‐generated information in health‐related social media data, and (4) our reported speech filter can reduce annotation time and significantly improve the automatic classification.“
They followed up by applying their method to a database of over 1.2 billion tweets, with moderate success identifying another 44,119 tweets referring to first-hand adverse pregnancy-related events, of which approximately 900 were erroneously included. A remarkable point is that units of pounds and ounces were very useful for their study, while kilograms and grams were less useful. PHIIRE Club members who are interested in natural language processing may want to read through the details for ways to address other data.
Klein, A. Z., Cai, H., Weissenbacher, D., Levine, L. D., Gonzalez-Hernandez, G. A natural language processing pipeline to advance the use of Twitter data for digital epidemiology of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Journal of Biomedical Informatics 112S (2020) 100076 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.yjbinx.2020.100076
Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research & Education (P.H.I.I.R.E) Presents
The PHIIRE Club, Dr. Joshi, the faculty advisor, and Rafaela Villacres, alumni, and Co-founder of PBC Labs are hosting PHIIREATHON: An Ideation to Innovation Impact Event to Address COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy taking place on Friday, November 19, 2021, from 2-4 PM. This student-led initiative intends to empower and foster students’ creative, critical thinking, and technological skills to propose innovative digital health approaches using informatics principles to reduce vaccine hesitancy within our communities.
This is an exciting opportunity for public health and informatics master and doctoral students alike to gain experience and training in informatics principles, problem-solving skills, entrepreneurship, leadership, teamwork, and communication skills. With the knowledge gained from this experience, we hope that students can better conceptualize, design, and develop innovative solutions to tackle public health challenges that arise post-COVID-19 and beyond.
Click below if you want to attend the PHIIREATHON Event to be hosted on November 19, 2021 by the PHIIRE Club and co-hosted with Rafaela Villacres Alumna from PBC Labs
PHIIREATHON: An Ideation to Innovation Impact Event
On Saturday, October 30, 2021, the PHIIRE Club hosted a preliminary information session for the PHIIREATHON: An Ideation to Innovation Impact Event to Address COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy to be held on Friday, November 19, 2021. The intent is for students to propose innovative digital health approaches using informatics principles to reduce vaccine hesitancy within our communities. The following information session helped inform interested students about the event, the application process, and the screening criteria for project proposals. Additionally, some project examples were highlighted to encourage all students to apply. With the knowledge gained from this experience, we hope that students can begin to conceptualize, design, and develop solutions to tackle public health challenges within our communities and beyond.
Below you’ll find a recording of the information session, where you’ll learn what it takes to be one of the ten ideas invited on November 19 for a chance to win one of three stipends awarded:
Click below if you want to apply to the PHIIREATHON and be one of the ten ideas invited on November 19 for a chance to win one of three stipends awarded:
https://cunysph.az1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_e5JAob8c6iekPAi
If you have any questions, please email rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu for more information on the PHIIREATHON and how you can be involved in the PHIIRE Club’s activities. If you’re interested in learning about how you can be involved in the PHIIRE Club’s activities, please email erica.rowe-owen66@sphmail.cuny.edu.
Please Stay Tuned For Updates!!
Join Us
- To submit your contributions to this newsletter, contact rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu
- Submit content here!
- To join the PHIIRE Club, contact Erica.Rowe-Owen66@sphmail.cuny.edu
- Visit Our Website
- Join the PHIIRE Club
Newsletter from the Population Health Informatics Program | October 2021
Population Health Informatics Program| October 2021
Senior Associate Dean
Student and Academic Affairs
Message
We’re very thankful for the positive feedback we’ve received from the launch of our first Digital Newsletter for the Population Health Informatics Program. I want to thank Rafaela Villacres, PHI Alum along with the PHIIRE Executive Committee, Erica Rowe-Owen, Sadaf Ahmad, and Kiyante Beaugris. We look forward to continuing to collaborate with you all and working towards scaling the program.
Table of Contents
- Informatics News
- Save the Date
- Research Highlight
- Global Health Informatics Tool
- Student Spotlight Series
- PHIIRE Club
Up-Coming PHI Talks for Which You Should Save the Date
Driving Digital Innovation with Data Analytics
October 19, 2021 | Webinar
Synthetic Health Data Challenge Winning Solutions
October 19, 2021 12 PM | Webinar
Emerging Health Information and Technologies Careers
October 26, 2021 12:30 PM | Webinar
November 3, 2021 12:00 – 3:30 PM | Webinar
PHI In The News
Patient portals tethered to electronic health records systems have become attractive web platforms since the enacting of the Medicare Access and Children’s Health Insurance Program Reauthorization Act and the introduction of the Meaningful Use program in the United States. With increasing adoption and patient engagement, the volume of patient secure messages has risen substantially, which opens new research and development opportunities for patient-centered care. This study aims to develop a data model for patient secure messages based on the Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resources (FHIR) standard to identify and extract significant information. Read More
Health information technology (HIT) regularly uses data-enabled infrastructure to support direct patient care, policy and planning, and public and population health. Timely, credible, reliable, and actionable data have always been vital to providing high-quality, equitable health care, both locally and globally. The pandemic underlined the importance of HIT support for the efforts needed to recognize, prevent, and control the pandemic, ensuring that decisions are well-informed, data-driven, and facilitate evidence-based policymaking. Read More
Highlights
- With the rapid pace of technological advancements, public health professions require a core set of informatics skills. The objective of the study is to integrate informatics competencies and job analysis to guide development of an evidence-based curriculum framework and apply it towards creation of a population health informatics program. We conducted content analysis of the Population Health Informatics related job postings in the state of New York between June and July 2019 using the Indeed job board. Read More
Predictors of COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance, Intention, and Hesitancy: A Scoping Review
- COVID-19 vaccine is regarded as the most promising means of limiting the spread of or eliminating the pandemic. The success of this strategy will rely on the rate of vaccine acceptance globally. The study aims to examine the factors that influence COVID-19 vaccine acceptance, intention, and hesitancy. Gender, age, education, and occupation were some of the socio-demographic variables associated with vaccine acceptance. Variables such as trust in authorities, risk perception of COVID-19 infection, vaccine efficacy, current or previous influenza vaccination, and vaccine safety affected vaccine acceptance. Read More
Global Health Informatics Tool
COVID-19 Cases in the Tri-State Area
By: Erica Rowe-Owen
SMAART RapidTracker: New Tri-State Area Cases
SMAART RapidTracker: Vaccination Count in the Tri-State Area
Last Accessed October 8, 2021
For more visualizations, visit SMAART Rapid Tracker at smaartrapidtracker.org.
Interested in submitting your own visualizations, email rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu.
Student Recognitions
Ideation and Innovation
Rafaela Villacres with the knowledge and insights she gained from the MS Population Health Informatics program, co-founded PBC Labs, a software development company that has a niche interest in the conceptualization, design, and development of mobile health interventions. She serves as the product manager and leads a diverse team of engineers and designers to help consumers lead healthier and happier lives. One of their goals is to leverage information science, technology, and public health to reduce the gap in health disparities among underserved populations to improve population health outcomes.
PBC labs was one of eight teams in the CUNY Public Health Innovation Accelerator Summer 2021 cohort with Bloomelody™—a therapist-centric mobile health platform developed in Flutter (Android, iOS, Web). Bloomelody is a one-of-a-kind music educational tool that seeks to streamline the process of creating educational content, teaching, and tracking the progress of children with developmental delays. The mobile health platform employs a human-centered design approach and applied behavioral analysis therapy to bring music, visual aid, and fun to the classroom.
Bloomelody is grounded in evidence-based research highlighting that applied behavioral analysis therapy coupled with music intervention between the ages of 0-3 can improve learning ability and outcomes later in life for children with developmental delays helping them catch up to their peers. Early-intervention therapists and teachers were at the center of the design and development process employing a human-centered design approach to foster collaboration, innovation, and iteration. We hope that Bloomelody can help educators’ improve their day-to-day workflow to better support their students.
If you want to learn more about PBC Labs, visit BLOOMELODY: Learning through Music.
Student Spotlight
Melissa Ditmore is a second-semester student currently pursuing her MS Population Health Informatics degree. Her next book will address the roots of human trafficking in the United States (Beacon Press, forthcoming 2023). Her other publications include peer-reviewed journal articles, research reports, advocacy materials, and short pieces. She has spoken at the International AIDS Conference, the United Nations and many academic and informal meetings, the International Harm Reduction Association, and events convened by sex workers. She aspires to focus on gender-based violence with her new population health informatics skills. She holds a doctorate in sociology from CUNY Graduate Center. You can find more of her work at www.melissaditmore.com.
Student Blog
Key Differences between Public and Population Health Informatics: A Brief Review
By: Kiyante Beaugris
While population and public health informatics may be thought of as two sides of the same coin, key differences exist between the two. Public Health as a discipline focuses on individual needs, community-specific health assessment, the establishment of preventative public health programs addressing identified needs, and often related to infrastructure and government-level policymaking.
Public Health Informatics as a specialty, utilizes technology to facilitate these aims by promoting the creation, utilization, and evaluation of community resources on individual, community, and government levels. Public health informatics also aims to advance interoperability between personal and electronic health record systems to establish true continuity of care.
However, Population Health and Population Health Informatics exist on a broader spectrum and serve to address the needs of larger defined populations. Kharrazi et. al 2017, note the ability to understand the needs that exist within specific geographic areas, and the capacity for evidence-based decision-making, as benefits of population health informatics.
While population health informatics also utilizes information technologies, it does so with the goal of integrating data and information to address the social determinants of health that influence health outcomes and drive population-level disparities. Data utilized on this scale is often harvested from several public health resources, including governmental and organizational sources.
Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research & Education (P.H.I.I.R.E) Presents
The Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research, and Education (PHIIRE) Club initiated by students of the MS Population Health Informatics program at CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy is launching on Friday, November 19, 2021, the PHIIREATHON: An Ideation to Innovation Impact Event to address COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy.
This initiative is in collaboration with PBC Labs which is founded by Rafaela Villacres, one of the first alumni cohorts of the MS Population Health Informatics program. She serves as the co-founder and product manager of this innovative start-up that aims to enhance the accessibility of technology to improve the health and well-being of underserved populations through mobile health interventions.
This is an opportunity for public health and informatics students to gain experience and training in informatics principles, problem-solving skills, entrepreneurship, leadership/teamwork, and communication skills. We want to empower students to foster their creative, critical thinking, and technological skills to tackle the public health challenges that arise post-COVID-19 and beyond.
Initial Screening Criteria
- Problem statement (5 points)
- Background
- Significance and Relevance
- Objective
- Technology (10 points)
- Digital health solution
- Innovation proposed
- Implementation
- Impact (10 points)
- Outcomes assessed
- Community impact
- Presentation (10 points)
- Information Communicated
- Quality of Delivery
The best 10 ideas will be invited for presentations on November 19, 2021.
Individuals will present information on the solution proposed, team composition, their implementation plan, the metrics of evaluation, and the community impact of the solution proposed.
Winners will be awarded a stipend after a delegation from a panel of judges with experience in public health research and entrepreneurship.
Applications Open Next Week!!
Stay Tuned for Further Updates!
Join Us!
- To submit your contributions to this newsletter, contact rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu.
- Submit content here!
- To join the PHIIRE Club, contact Erica.Rowe-Owen66@sphmail.cuny.edu
- Visit Our Website
- Join the PHIIRE Club
Newsletter from the Population Health Informatics Program | September 2021
Population Health Informatics Program | September 2021
Ashish Joshi Ph.D., MBBS, MPH
Senior Associate Dean
Student and Academic Affairs
Welcome to the launch of our inaugural newsletter in Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research, and Education (PHIIRE). Every month, we will bring together recent updates and highlights of what is happening in the field of population health informatics. We will aggregate and summarize the latest population health informatics news as well as disseminate critical highlights, such as information on new health technologies, skill-building workshops, and job opportunities related to the field of population health informatics.
I would also like to congratulate the students of the MS and Certificate program in population health informatics on their initiation of the CUNY SPH PHIIRE student club. In this inaugural newsletter, we present some of the numerous accomplishments of students and alumni of the CUNY SPH Population Health Informatics program.
With much appreciation,
Ashish Joshi
I too want to welcome all the incoming and returning CUNY SPH Population Health Informatics (PHI) students and congratulate you, program alumni as well as Dean Joshi on the formation of the PHIRE student club. I know that you will all do great things with the PHI training you receive and that this club will be an amazing opportunity for you to put that training into practice.
Elizabeth Kelvin
Associate Professor & Chair
Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics
Table of Contents
- New Population Health Informatics Faculty
- Save the Date
- Research Highlight
- Global Health Informatics Tool
- Student Spotlight Series
- PHIIRE Club
Welcome, New Population Health Informatics Faculty!
Karmen S. Williams is an Assistant Professor of Health Policy and Management. She completed a post-doctorate fellowship in public and population health informatics at Indiana University and Regenstrief Institute. Her research focused on systemic informatics integration projects such as Patient-Centered Data Homes and dental and medical record integration.
Dr. Williams is also actively involved in the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), where she is the Co-Chair of the Pipeline Subcommittee in the Women in AMIA, Chair of the Dental Informatics Working Group, and Director of ‘For Your Informatics’, a podcast that explores the limitless world of medical informatics. This podcast is led by the Women in AMIA, and showcases people in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) and informatics, and discusses topics relevant to success in these fields. Dr. Williams is passionate about increasing representation in STEM at the system level in all areas of informatics.
Dr. Jose Florez-Arango is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics. Dr. Florez is originally from Colombia, South America. He earned his MD and MSc in biomedical sciences from Universidad de Antioquia, and his Ph.D. in health informatics from The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston. D. Florez-Arango has broad experience in teaching, research, and innovation in prehospital care and emergency management, telemedicine, clinical decision support systems, development of health information systems based-on international standards, interoperability, and controlled vocabularies. As a university professor, he has covered knowledge domains in human physiology, medical semiology, physician-patient relationship, urgencies emergencies and disasters, and health informatics, among others disciplines.
Academic Programs
Population Health Informatics (PHI) addresses the growing opportunity to use technology to implement evidence-based solutions for the improvement of population health outcomes. While most health informatics programs take a hospital-centric approach, this innovative first-of-its-kind PHI program focuses on how to operationalize informatics solutions to address important public health challenges impacting individuals, families, communities, and the environment in which they live. Read More
Here at the CUNY SPH we offer two PHI training opportunities:
(1) MS in Population Health Informatics
- A fully online 39 credits program where students learn to use technology at the intersection of clinical care and health sciences in order to strengthen efforts for preventive care at the population level. Students are provided with the skills and expertise to design, develop, implement, and evaluate technology enabled interventions and solutions to address the population health challenges facing us today.
(2) Certificate Population Health Informatics
- The Population Health Informatics (PHI) Certificate focuses on the application of technology in designing and deploying interventions to address public health challenges in the 21st century. This fully online program aims to teach students how to design, develop, implement, and evaluate technology enabled population health interventions and solutions.
Up-Coming PHI Talks For Which You Should Save the Date
September 15, 2021 4 PM | Webinar
September 23 and 24, 2021 | Webinar
SRA Tool Overview and Feedback
September 30, 2021 11 AM | Webinar
John A. Stankovic- Towards Ambient Intelligence in Smart Healthcare
September 30, 2021 8 AM | Webinar
Interoperability: Bridging the Gap Between Clinical and Technical Aspects of Telehealth Services
PHI In The News
Since its conception in 2013, the Regenstrief Institute along with the Indiana University School of Medicine, Eskenazi Health, and the American Medical Association created the Regenstrief Teaching EMR (tEMR) to improve upon previous Electronic Health record training. tEMR is a derivative of a real-world electronic health record used by health professional schools to help students learn about common health information technology (HIT) tools and issues. The aim of this tool is to encourage students-future educators, administrators, and practice leaders to start developing HIT insights to help influence how HIT should be used in health care.
Launch of COVID Digital Health Centre of Excellence (DICE)
The multi-agency COVID-19 Digital Health Center of Excellence (DICE), co-led by UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), provides coordinated technical assistance to countries to support sustainable and scalable deployment of carefully chosen digital health solutions that support COVID-19 pandemic response plans. The focus is strengthening health systems — from planning the distribution of diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines to monitoring coverage of services, and communicating to reach people and reduce misinformation.
Highlights
- Health technologies are essential for a functioning health system. The response to the global COVID-19 pandemic crisis has exacerbated the need for rapid evidence-
- This study aims to review applications of artificial intelligence (AI), telehealth, and other relevant digital health solutions for public health responses in the healthcare operating environment amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Read more
Global Health Informatics Tool
Ashish Joshi, Senior Associate Dean Academic and Student Affairs and Professor of CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy in collaboration with researchers globally designed and developed SMAART Rapid Tracker, research enabled action-oriented policy interventions driven by data, an innovative policy informatics tool aimed to track the geospatial spread of COVID-19 outbreak and policy actions globally. The dashboard aggregates publicly available but verified information on the burden of COVID-19 and vaccine uptake globally. Currently, the tracker has provided experiential learning opportunities to nearly 300 students with a representation from those pursuing public health, recent graduates, and those aspiring to become public health professionals. We welcome students interested in experiential learning opportunities using SMAART RAPID Tracker.
SMAART Rapid Tracker: New Global Cases
SMAART Rapid Tracker: New Vaccination Counts
Last Accessed August 30, 2021
For more visualizations, visit SMAART Rapid Tracker at smaartrapidtracker.org.
Student Recognitions
We’re excited to share that two of our Population Health Informatic students were awarded at CUNY SPH’s Online Commencement Ceremony in June 2021:
Rafaela Villacres received the Dean’s Merit Award for Commitment for her work in advancing public health research, advocacy, and leadership. She serves as a Research Coordinator at the Research Foundation of CUNY under the supervision of Dr. Joshi to assist in scaling the population health informatics program to enhance student academic success, opportunities, and career outcomes. She currently serves as the Alumni Ambassador for the Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research, and Education (PHIIRE) Club, which she founded last semester.
With the knowledge she gained from the program, she co-founded PBC Labs, a software development company that aims to leverage information science, technology, and public health to conceptualize, develop, and drive mobile health interventions. She serves as the product manager and leads a diverse team of engineers and designers. Their mission is to reduce the gap in health disparities among underserved or vulnerable populations and empower community-based organizations to improve population health outcomes.
Amina Alam worked full-time while pursuing her degree, maintained a 4.0 GPA, and was awarded the EPI-BIOS Departmental Award for Excellence for her high-quality work. She graduated in 2016 from CUNY City College where she received her Bachelor of Science in Biology and began working as a public health inspector at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene’s Healthy Homes Program. After two years of responding to pediatric lead poisonings and other field inspections, she became a senior public health inspector and noticed how meaningful use of data can really improve functions and productivity in her workplace. She graduated from CUNY SPH in May 2021 and now looks forward to applying its principles in her current career.
Congratulations to our fellow graduates and their most recent achievements!
Student Spotlight
Erica Rowe-Owen is the President of the PHIIRE organization for Fall 2021. She serves as the Operations Program Coordinator for the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) at Bronx Community College and is tasked with providing operational and analytical support to the team of academic advisors, administrative and management team; but most importantly – to the students enrolled in the program. With the skills gained from the program, her goal is to build and use dashboards to provide population-based health care to the college communities through efficient data management processes including documentation, reporting, and analysis of students’ health data. She is an advocate for student development and strongly supports the idea that no CUNY student should fail to graduate or achieve academic success because of unmet basic needs relating to food & housing insecurity, mental health challenges, violence, or inability to access much-needed health care.
Student Blog
Using interactive digital notebooks for bioscience and informatics education: A Brief Review
By: Rafaela Villacres
As population health informaticians, we’re tasked with designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating technology-enabled solutions to drive evidence-based decision-making practices in tackling the public health challenges of our times. We utilize information technologies to integrate data and information to address the social determinants of health that influence health outcomes and drive population-level disparities. The data used on this scale comes from several public health resources, including governmental and organizational sources.
As students, we seek resources that can teach us things outside the classroom that will be a transferrable and valuable skillset in the field. We’re looking for flexible and affordable study options that allow us to learn at our own pace to reduce student burnout. The researchers in this study highlight how they integrated digital notebooks (specifically Jupyter notebooks) to teach lay and technical audience Python programming and database skills for Clinical Bioinformatics and Health Informatics students. Jupyter notebooks are an open-source web application created by Project Jupyter, which allows the sharing of code, data analysis, visualizations, math formulas, and other embedded media, all in a single document combining interactive and narrative components.1 The Jupyter system supports over 100 programming languages including, Python, Java, R, SQL, Matlab, and many more.
Both staff and students alike found using Jupyter notebooks as a valuable resource for learning to code and communicating research findings and analysis. The use of interactive digital notebooks integrated into a master’s and certificate informatics curriculum allows non-coders to leverage computer science practices and gives experienced coders the ability to refine their skillsets to propose technology-enabled interventions. The fieldwork component of the MS Population Health Informatics degree at CUNY SPH does just that. It allows students to learn hands-on technical skills used in the field to drive evidence-based decision-making processes with sound data visualizations. These interactive modules prove beneficial for the thesis component of their master’s degrees and if they decide to move into academia later on in their careers.
Davies A, Hooley F, Causey-Freeman P, Eleftheriou I, Moulton G (2020) Using interactive digital notebooks for bioscience and informatics education. PLoS Comput Biol 16(11): e1008326. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1008326
Population Health Informatics Innovation, Research &
Education (P.H.I.I.R.E) Club
Welcome to the 2021-2022 academic year to our new and returning students. To the members of the Population Health Informatics program, healthcare professionals are relying on informatics now more than ever to support not only population health initiatives but to also create evidence-based metrics in designing plans of care, and evidence-based solutions in improving population health outcomes globally. And, to the PHIIRE Club Members, I look forward to that time when we can all safely return to campus and host various activities. We have a great semester ahead of us with an amazing speaker series, unveiling of the first Population Health Informatics Newsletter, a Digital Hackathon in collaboration with the American Medical Informatics Association (AMIA), and optional monthly check-in sessions with faculty, and peers.
Erica Rowe-Owen, President
Welcome everyone to the 2021-2022 academic year at CUNY SPH! We are excited for our next cohort of graduates, so we welcome new and returning students. The MS Population Health Informatics Program in collaboration with the PHIIRE Club wants to ensure that students are being engaged in class and outside as well. We are currently living in a digital world, but we still want to foster campus engagement and opportunities for all students remotely. As someone who made it through the program herself, I am keen to help prospective and current students navigate this journey. I hope you all have a great semester and look forward to working with you!
Rafaela Villacres, Alumni Ambassador
Join us!!
- To submit your contributions to this newsletter, contact Ashish.Joshi@sphmail.cuny.edu or Rafaela.villacres63@sphmail.cuny.edu
- To join the PHIIRE Club, contact Erica.Rowe-Owen66@sphmail.cuny.edu
- Join the PHIIRE Club
