Taxes on sugary beverages are an emerging strategy to improve health, but perceptions about unintended consequences may affect attitudes towards the policy. Supported by CSDE’s NICHD P2C infrastructure grant, CSDE Affiliates Melissa Knox, Economics Lecturer, Jessica Jones-Smith, Professor of Health Services & Epidemiology, and Vanessa Oddo, Acting Assistant Professor of Health Services, analyzed perceptions of the effects of Seattle’s sugary beverage tax in a upcoming BMC Public Health paper.
The authors conducted a survey on 851 adults and examined perceptions of the health and economic effects of the 2017 Seattle soda tax, and the differences in perceptions across income levels and racial/ethnic categories. Knox, Jonse-Smith, and Oddo found that most respondents supported the tax, believed that it would improve public health, and that it would not negatively affect small businesses, result in job loss, or impact their own finances. However, fewer lower-income participants perceived that the tax would improve public health, would not result in job loss, and would not negatively affect their finances. Compared to white participants, a smaller proportion of participants of color (non-Hispanic Blacks and Hispanics) perceived that the tax would have negative consequences for their own family finances.
CSDE Affiliate David Swanson, Professor Emeritus of Sociology at UC-Riverside, was selected by Population Review as a featured author for his recently co-authored article, “Estimating the underlying infant mortality rates for small populations, including those reporting zero infant deaths: A case study of counties in California.” The article as well as authors’ bios are available on the Population Review front page below.
The National Science Foundation is awarding an additional $4 million for Regional Big Data Innovation Hubs to address scientific and societal challenges by building and strengthening data science partnerships across industry, academia, nonprofits, and government. UW will continue to coordinate the West Big Data Innovation Hub in collaboration with UC-Berkeley and UC-San Diego. CSDE Affiliate Sarah Stone is the West Hub Deputy Director, Co-Principal Investigator, and Executive Director of the eScience Institute.
Among projects supported by the West Hub is the UW Evictions Project, led by CSDE Afilliate Tim Thomas, which extracted information from thousands of evictions case reports and uncovered extreme racial disparity, leading directly to a policy change that increased the response time allowed to tenants.
We invite applications from ambitious postdoctoral epidemiologists, biostatisticians, health economists or geographers to join Professor Tanser’s research group at Africa Health Research Institute (AHRI) in Durban, South Africa. Training involves research in a mentored environment in the areas of population health, epidemiology, and behavioural science for cutting-edge HIV research in South Africa.
The successful candidates will have access to one of the largest ongoing population-based HIV cohorts in the world – the Africa Health Research Institute’s population cohort in rural KwaZulu-Natal, which includes over 90,000 individuals, with individual-level sociodemographic, biological, and clinical record data as well as comprehensive genomics data.
The projects will leverage the institute’s existing big data infrastructure, next generation viral gene sequencing platform, comprehensive geographical information system as well as the recently established research platform for tracking individual mobility patterns via smartphones and other on-going projects.
The Department of Medicine and the Chicago Center for HIV Elimination at The University of Chicago announce a post-doctoral scholar position for a computational scientist focusing on public health research. The position is under the direct supervision of CSDE alum Aditya Khanna, Ph.D. and John Schneider MD, MPH.
The UW Office of the Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) has gathered password tips to keep your information and work safe. In brief, be sure to avoid clicking links in e-mails, don’t reuse passwords across accounts, be cautious on wireless networks and public computers, create unique passwords and passphrases, and use secure services for secure connections! You can find the full list and video here.
We are now accepting applications for the 2019-2020 Science Teaching for Postdocs (STEP) program. Applications are due September 6, 2019 at 5pm.
STEP Description
Our mission is to engage a diverse pool of postdoctoral fellows at the University of Washington and affiliate institutions in a closely mentored apprenticeship to learn how to teach scientifically with inclusive, demonstrably effec tive, student-centered pedagogies.
This apprenticeship provides teaching experiences for postdocs who have 100% research appointments. Postdocs attend short training sessions that efficiently introduce state-of-the-art teaching strategies that are effective for students and time-saving for instructors. The postdocs work in teams of three to co-design and co-teach their courses. Each team delivers a 10-week, special topics seminar course. The program directors observe class meetings and meet regularly with the postdocs to discuss the strengths of their teaching and to brainstorm on strategies to addressing areas that need improvement. Some of the seminars target biology majors, and are held at either UW Bothell or UW Seattle; other seminars are for nonmajors at UW Bothell. All of the postdocs come together at the end of the academic year to share experiences and improve their teaching philosophies and dossiers. These program features allow the postdocs to set and meet reasonable training and teaching goals without disrupting their research progress.
More information about the program is attached; please share these flyers!
The Institute for Disease Modeling shapes global efforts to eradicate infectious diseases and to achieve permanent improvements in the health of those most in need. By developing, using, and freely sharing computational modeling tools, we advise policymakers, promote quantitative decision-making and advance scientific methodologies. IDM is a highly dynamic organization, composed of research scientists and software professionals, with a work environment that is defined by innovation and collaboration. As part of our work, we routinely collaborate with groups at the World Health Organization, the Center for Disease Control, PATH, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, ministries of health in the developing world, as well as universities and research institutes. IDM is an institute within the Global Good Fund, a collaboration between Intellectual Ventures and Bill and Melinda Gates.
The HIV and TB research programs at IDM provide analytical support to our strategic partners on population-level dynamics questions, including predictions of epidemic trends, impacts of intervention-targeting scenarios, target product profiles for specific use cases, and insights into risk factors and drivers of variability in epidemic patterns across demographic, temporal, and spatial scales. The HIV and TB Research Manager, reporting to the Director of Global Health Research, will work closely with the other software and research groups at IDM to develop and apply a reusable set of open-source modeling tools to address specific policy questions, while also advancing their use more widely in the community. The individual will assume an essential role in shaping the culture, tactical and strategic goals, and the overall success of IDM’s contributions to global health.
The eScience Institute at the University of Washington is seeking outstanding candidates for the position of Data Scientist. The ideal candidate will have expertise in one or more areas related to data science (machine learning, statistics, databases, large-scale data systems, visualization, and interfaces that facilitate large-scale data understanding), demonstrated experience in software engineering and open-source software, and demonstrated ability to use these skills to solve problems in an applied domain discipline. Aimed at top-notch candidates, this position offers the opportunity for world-class applied research – in collaboration with some of the best researchers in the world – tackling challenging data science problems in multiple domains.
QUAL Workshops are free, one-day, hands-on tutorials that instruct students in the use of ATLAS.ti.
Workshops are open to all UW graduate students interested in deepening their qualitative multi-method data analysis skills.
The workshop will run with both Windows and Mac, and those attending should come with their own laptops with Atlas.ti installed.
The workshop is limited to 15 people, and registration is required, so please sign up for the Atlas.ti workshop as soon as possible. We will maintain a wait list and let you know.
Event sponsors: The Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies/ The Anne H.H. and Kenneth B. Pyle Assistant Professorship/ Center for Korea Studies/ Center for Global Studies/ Comparative Religion Program/ Isaac Alhadeff Professorship in Sephardic Studies/ JSIS Japan Studies Program/Job and Gertrud Tamaki Professorship/ South Asia Center
Additional support at the University of Washington comes from: Department of Communication/ Interdisciplinary Ph.D. Program in Near and Middle Eastern Studies/ School of Law