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Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology

CSDE Computational Demography Working Group (CDWG) Hosts Kaiping Chen on Applying Computational Methods to Examine Equity in Science Communication (12/06/23)

On December 6 from 3:30-4:30 pm Kaiping Chen, an Assistant Professor in Computational Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will join CDWG to discuss how to apply computational methods (e.g., NLP, computer vision, network) to examine equity in science communication from digital media to conversational AI. CDWG Will be Hybrid in Fall Quarter 2023. The discussion will take place in 223 Raitt Hall (The Demography Lab) and on Zoom (register here). Dr. Chen will also introduce how her team develops computational technologies — democratic deliberation technologies, to empower under-served communities in public policymaking. You can follow her on: @Kaiping_Chen.

CSDE’s UW Data Collaborative Receives 2nd Endorsement from UW Office of Information Security

CSDE’s UW Data Collaborative is a unique, secure data enclave for researchers collaborating on highly sensitive or proprietary data. In November 2023, the UW Office of Information Security renewed its endorsement of the UW Data Collaborative (UWDC) after a reviewing its infrastructure, updated security protocols and practices safeguarding highly-sensitive, restricted-use data stored within its computing systems.  The UWDC first received this endorsement from the Office of the Chief Information Security Officer and Associate Vice President of Infrastructure at UW-IT in 2020. If you would like to learn more about the UWDC, contact Sofia Ayala sgayala@uw.edu UWDC Director or visit their website.
In the endorsement letter, Mark Nardone, Associate Vice President & Chief Information Security Officer at UW Office of Information Security, writes:
“The UW Office of Information Security enthusiastically supports the UW Data Collaborative (UWDC) mission. OIS recognizes UWDC’s dedication to ensuring the security and integrity of its systems, data, and processes to provide essential high-powered analytic computing services to the University’s research community. … The security model and infrastructure employed by the UWDC are robust and follow contemporary best practices, allowing for the broad use and safe handling of sensitive data within a tightly controlled and hardened environment.”
The UWDC welcomes this endorsement from UW’s information security leadership in recognition of our continuous efforts to provide an up-to-date secure research environment that meets all physical and information security requirements for storage of, access to, and research with sensitive and confidential restricted-use data from research community partners such as State of Washington agencies.
The UW Data Collaborative (UWDC) provides the infrastructure to harness innovative, but hard-to-access data for the development of novel, high-quality research and evidence-driven policy making. Central to the UWDC is a state-of-the art computing cluster that provides access to restricted data in a secure and computationally sophisticated environment. A key objective of the UWDC is to foster collaborative relationships between UW researchers and community partners, including government organizations, non-profits, and other service providers, interested in better utilizing their data for cross-cutting research, program evaluation, and policy development.

*New* Support Available for Data Collection Through SDRG’s Survey Research Division

Have a funded project and need some help collecting primary data? Talk to Danielle Woodward – Director of the Survey Research Division at the Social Development Research Group (SDRG), which is connected to UW’s School of Social Work. SDRG can provide many different services to support research, including: recruitment and data collection for surveys across many modalities health measurement and bio-specimen collection; and, sample tracking/subject locating. Email Danielle at dgangnes@uw.edu.

 

*New* NIH designates people with disabilities as population with health disparities

Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), designated people with disabilities as a population with health disparities for research supported by the National Institutes of Health. The decision was made in consultation with Robert Otto Valdez, Ph.D., the director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, after careful consideration of a report delivered by an NIMHD advisory council, input from the disability community and a review of the science and evidence. A report issued in December 2022 by the Advisory Committee to the (NIH) Director (ACD), informed by the work of the Subgroup on Individuals with Disabilities, explored similar issues faced by people with disabilities. The designation is one of several steps NIH is taking to address health disparities faced by people with disabilities and ensure their representation in NIH research.

CSDE Autumn 2023 Lightning Talk & Poster Session

Please join us and the Population Health Initiative for short talks and a poster session featuring research from CSDE Trainees and students. The poster session will take place in-person in Green A of the Research Commons in Allen Library South from 12:30-1:30 PM on Friday, Dec 8th. This year’s event features the work of several CSDE Trainees and students:

  • Hugo Aguas (PhD student, Sociology): Housing Precariousness Relationships to Household Composition Amongst Hispanic Renters 2020-2023
  • Breon Haskett (PhD student, Sociology): Nowhere Bound: Industrial Pull Factors in the US
  • Julie Kim (PhD student, Health Metrics): Global Improvements in the Representation of Women in Science Have Stalled
  • Bocheng Zhang (PhD student, Economics): Language Assimilation as a Determinant of School Attendance for Immigrant Children

*New* UW Data Seminar: Phuong to Discuss Population Health Research & Research Data Sharing (12/5/23)

Join UW Data Science on Tuesday, December 5th for their final UW Data Science Seminar of 2023 with Jimmy Phuong, MSPH, PhD, who is Acting Assistant Professor of UW Biomedical and Health Informatics. The seminar will be held in person in the UW Physics/Astronomy Auditorium A102 from 4:30 to 5:20 p.m. Pacific. Learn more about Dr. Phuong’s seminar here.

“Population health research & research data sharing in national research consortia”

Abstract: Health systems are uniquely positioned to survey the health of their patient population, including the effects of natural hazards, disaster disruptions, and public health emergencies.  Health systems are an integral part of biomedical research consortia, where data sharing supports data-driven research and iterative quality improvements to the data from each health system. Apart from clinical outcomes, health systems are gradually increasing their focus upon collecting and addressing gaps in understanding Social Determinants of Health (or Social Drivers of Health, SDoH) and their dynamic role in maintaining health and wellness. This includes integrating patient-level information as well as place-based information integrated from geocoding and secondary use of spatial-temporal datasets. In this talk, I will discuss the nexus of environmental health, disaster management and population health research, and biomedical informatics research. I will also discuss the directions from health system preparedness, the broader implications towards research data sharing and research consortia with a precision medicine focus, and the analytical capacities needed for research with multiple data types in cloud infrastructure.