Wright Regional Center for Translational Science Hosts 2nd Annual Research Symposium
There are a number of populations that experience health disparities based on their economic or social status, geographic location and their environment. Researchers in healthcare and academic institutions continue to work to address these disparities. On June 22, 2022 our second annual research symposium hosted a number of faculty, students, researchers and community members to present on and discuss data science approaches to health disparities research.
Hosted by VCU and partners, VSU and EVMS and coordinated by Lauren Harris, M.Ed., M.S., hub research capacity administrator for the Wright Center, the discussion was led by Roy Sabo, Ph.D., director for the Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Research Design Core of the C. Kenneth and Dianne Wright Center for Clinical and Translational Research.
Sabo was joined by moderators Andrew Plunk, Ph.D., associate professor in the Department of Pediatrics and director of Community Outreach and Partnership at Eastern Virginia
Medical School, Melanie K. Bean, Ph.D., core lead for Hub Research Capacity at the Wright Center and associate professor in the Division of Endocrinology and Metabolism, Department of Pediatrics, and Sunita Dodani, M.D., Ph.D.,Founding Director of the EVMS-Sentara
Healthcare Analytics and Delivery Science Institute (HADSI).
The large turnout of the symposium – over 200 registrants that hailed from institutions such as Stanford School of Medicine, UW-Madison, University of Southern California, Colombia, Dartmouth, CTSI Wake Forest and more – shows the interest community members, healthcare professionals and researchers have in actively seeking and combating health disparities in communities across the nation.
“I have learned that the action and excitement really begins when we apply and dedicate ourselves to particular fields while there are many exciting fields in the medical and health sciences. One of the more important is that of health disparities. It is noted by the importance in focus of health disparities, by many federal agencies and federal funding agencies, but also in the turnout for the symposium today to help us better contextualize this field and our symposium,” said Sabo.
Seven researchers presented on their work:
- Amol Karmarkar, Ph.D., professor in the Department of Physical Medicine andRehabilitation at Virginia Commonwealth University, presented his research on “Disparities in Transitions of Care for Individuals with Brain Injury and Spinal Cord Injury.”
- Brynn E. Sheehan, Ph.D., assistant director of the EVMS-Sentara Healthcare Analytics and Delivery Science Institute, spoke on the topic of “Healthcare Data Research Challenges, Limitations, and Potential Solutions.”
- Jacqueline Britz, M.D., MSPH, clinician-researcher in the department of family medicine and population health at Virginia Commonwealth University, spoke to her work on “Combining claims data with other data sources to investigate opioid – use disorder.”
- As a collective, Aaron Schroeder, Ph.D.,research associate professor in the Biocomplexity Institute at the University of Virginia, Susan Chen, Ph.D.,director of the VT Data Science for the Public Good Young Scholars Internship Program and the Data Analytics in Agriculture, Community, and Rural Economics REEU program, and Omar Faison, Ph.D, associate vice provost for research and economic development and dean of the College of Graduate Studies at Virginia State University, presented on “Building data science for the Public Good Young Scholars Programs: lessons from an inter-institutional collaboration.”
- Ismail El Moudden, Ph.D., assistant director at the EVMS-Sentara Healthcare Analytics and Delivery Science Institute, spoke on a “Data Science Based-Healthcare Analysis and Interactive Platform for Virginia Health Information Data.”
Meaningful discussions followed each researcher presentation, and a call to action not only in research, but in policy was enacted. “With this symposium, the conduct of clinical and translational research is a key component in advancing health equity, yet to create more systematic change, we must change policy mandates,” said Melanie Bean, Ph.D.
Another important takeaway from the presentations was that data science is pivotal to health disparities research, because it allows a larger audience to see the impact health disparities have on a population and aids in identifying possible solutions to these issues. This symposium’s focus on data science and its role in health disparities research allowed for presenters and guests to discuss the importance of data and its effect on policy.
“Data science and its constituent fields often have high technical barriers to entry, such as being skilled in probability, calculus, matrix algebra, or computer coding. However, I was heartened to see so many guests from non-data science fields. I am hopeful that this symposium and its presenters displayed not only the potential of data science methods to help address health disparities – by way of research already in progress across the commonwealth – but will encourage more researchers to take deeper dives into these fields” said Roy Sabo, Ph.D.
The next symposium set for early 2023 will focus on recruitment and retention. Please follow the Wright Center’s calendar and subscribe to the Wright Center’s newsletter for notice of the upcoming symposium and the video release.
