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:
Evaluating the online presence of Ministries of Health (WHO)
Description: This project assesses the public health information provided by the website and social media presence of official health agencies across the world. Assessments will use established survey instruments and be conducted in the official languages of the countries.
Tasks: Conducting surveys of MoH websites and social media presence
Data type: Survey
Skills: Fluency in non-English languages
Project status: Ongoing
Monitoring opioid overdoses (CUPHD)
Description: This project helps Champaign-Urbana public health understand opioid overdoses in the county.
Tasks: Analyzing traditional and novel data sources, mapping results
Data type: Multiple
Skills: GIS, Survey design, data analysis
Project status: Ongoing
Drug Name Cleaning (PAHO)
Description: This project is developing tools to process medication inventory data provided by member states in Spanish and Portuguese and convert to a standard database format in English.
Tasks: Processing semi-structured Spanish text
Data type: Text
Skills: ETL, LLM
Project status: Ongoing
Detecting misinformation from TikTok (WHO)
Description: This project will build on a tool developed by CHI to help WHO understand health communication on TiKTok and other video-based social media platforms.
Tasks: Summarizing result sets, video/image analysis, LLM testing
Data type: Video-based social media
Skills: Visualization, ML, LLM
Project status: Ongoing
Studying the discussion on social media around disability (DRES)
Description: This will be an exploratory study of the social media discussion about disabilities in Illinois.
Tasks: Conduct a survey of the online discussion around disability
Data type: Social Media
Skills: Social media analysis
Project status: New
Identifying disruptions to prescription drugs in Latin America (PAHO)
Description: This project seeks to develop methods of identifying disruptions in the supply of medications and vaccines in Latin America through social media and other sources.
Tasks: Literature and social media searching, data analysis
Data type: Text, Video
Skills: Spanish, Portuguese
Project status: Ongoing
Development of LLM-based infodemic management tools (PAHO)
Description: This project explores the use of LLMs in the detection, evaluation, and response to health misinformation.
Tasks: Development of LLM-based tools to identify, evaluate, and respond to misinformation
Data type: Multiple
Skills: LLM
Project status: Ongoing
Extreme weather and health (IDPH)
Description: This project analyzes the relationship between population health data and environmental factors to help the Illinois Department of Public Health understand and prepare for extreme weather events. Click Here for more details
Tasks: Modeling the relationship between extreme weather events and their health impact
Data type: Coded health data, weather data, etc.
Skills: Data analytics
Project status: Ongoing
Social media discussion on weather and health (IDPH)
Description: This project will explore the value of social media as a data source to understand public perception about the relationship between weather and health outcomes in Illinois.
Tasks: Conduct review of social media discussions
Data type: Social media
Skills: Social media analytics
Project status: New
Equity mapping (IDPH)
Description: This project is developing maps showing the relationship between disease prevalence and the proximity of relevant healthcare providers across the state.
Tasks: Establish a healthcare access gap map for Illinois
Data type: Numerical
Skills: GIS
Project status: Ongoing
Pharmaceutical need prediction (PAHO)
Description: This project is helping the Pan-American Health Organization predict the changing medication and vaccine needs of member states considering factors such as mass migration, demographics, and climate change.
Tasks: Develop models to predict future national drug stockpile needs
Data type: Text
Skills: Literature review
Project status: Ongoing
Use of LLMs in Medical Education (UFCSPA)
Description: This project is developing tools to analyze and improve the patient interviews conducted by medical students.
Tasks: Prompt engineering
Data type: Audio, video, and text
Skills: LLM
Project status: Ongoing
Volunteer opportunities
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.
Current student volunteers: CHI Students 2024-25 – Center for Health Informatics.