CHIME-in Student Opportunities in Public Health

CHI get approached on a routine basis by our public health and clinical partners with requests for help and new projects. These projects span the data, information, and behavioral sciences and provide great opportunities for students to work on real projects with major health organizations.

Examples of projects with potential openings include:

AI in Infodemic Management (WHO)

Tasks: Developing methods to identify misinformation from videos and images based on Social Media

Skills: ML/AI Data workflows, LLMs

Project status: New

Evaluating the online presence of Ministries of Health (WHO)

Tasks: Conducting surveys of MoH websites and social media presence

Skills: Fluency in non-English languages

Project status: Ongoing

Monitoring opioid overdoses (CUPHD)

Tasks: Analyzing traditional and novel data sources, mapping results

Skills: GIS, Survey design, data analysis

Project status: Ongoing

Detecting Disruptions in the Pharmaceutical Supply Chain (PAHO)

Tasks: Use of Social Media and other sources to detect problems with drug supply chain

Skills: Text Analysis, Descriptive Analysis

Project status: Ongoing

Global Drug Freight Cost Estimator (PAHO with IBC)

Tasks: Developing a tool to help countries estimate the cost of freight charges for shipping drugs

Skills: Data analytics, Software development

Project status: New

Predicting National Drug Needs Trends (PAHO)

Tasks: Prediction of National drug needs based on changing climate, immigration, etc

Skills: Predictive Modeling

Project status: New

Drug Name Cleaning (PAHO)

Tasks: Developing general method to clean drug stockpile data received from member states

Skills: ML/AI

Project status: New

Detecting misinformation from TikTok (CDC)

Tasks: Summarizing result sets, video/image analysis, LLM testing

Skills: Visualization, ML, LLM

Project status: Ongoing

Studying the discussion on social media around disability (DRES)

Tasks: Conduct a survey of the online discussion around disability

Skills: Social media analysis

Project status: New

Identifying disruptions to prescription drugs in Latin America (PAHO)

Tasks: Literature and social media searching, data analysis

Skills: Spanish, Portuguese

Project status: Ongoing

Development of LLM-based anti-infodemic tools (PAHO)

Tasks: Development of LLM-based tools to identify, evaluate, and respond to misinformation

Skills: LLM

Project status: Ongoing

Exploration of lesser-known social media platforms for health information (CDC)

Tasks: Survey social media

Skills: Social media analysis

Project status: Ongoing

Extreme weather and health (IDPH)

Tasks: Modeling the relationship between extreme weather events and their health impact

Skills: Data analytics

Project status: Ongoing

Social media discussion on weather and health (IDPH)

Tasks: Conduct review of social media discussions

Skills: Social media analytics

Project status: New

Equity mapping (IDPH)

Tasks: Establish a healthcare access gap map for Illinois

Skills: GIS

Project status: New

Health survey analysis (Uganda MoH)

Tasks: Analyze results of health surveys conducted in Ugandan mobile communities

Skills: Data analytics, visualization

Project status: Ongoing

Project Title: CHIME-in Volunteer Coordinator
Project Description: The CHIME-in volunteer program matches students with public health agencies that need help with informatics and data science projects. Current external partners include the World Health Organization, Pan-American Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Illinois Department of Public Health, Uganda Ministry of Health, and Champaign-Urbana Public Health District.

The goal of this project is to help organize the processes involved with obtaining and assigning projects in preparation for scaling up the program.

Students Eligible:
Student Activities: Responsibilities will include:
 •       Coordinating volunteer groups for projects
•       Helping to identify the requirements of new projects and assigning volunteers.
•       Identifying and recruiting volunteers
•       Collecting information on qualifications and skills
•       Arranging for training when needed
•       Communicating frequently with volunteers
•       Evaluating the CHIME in program and helping to design its future
•       Developing content for social media, newsletters, website etc. to recognize volunteer contributions and to help promote CHIME in.