Author: Public Health Data & Training Center

Data Center Pivots in the Wake of Pandemic: 2020 Highlights

One of the strengths of the Institute for Public Health is its flexibility. Faculty and staff at the Public Health Data and Training Center pivoted quickly to support Covid-19 data efforts when the pandemic hit. Covid-19 & Regional Data Infrastructure Data Center Director, Randi Foraker leads an effort to create a regional Covid-19 dataset that […]

COVID-19: What the Public Health Data & Training Center is reading

As part of its effort to create opportunities to share important public health information with the community, the Public Health Data and Training Center at the Institute for Public Health shares the following articles and books during this period of COVID-19 virus and sheltering at home. Here’s what we’re reading. We hope you find these […]

Data Center Publications: 2019 in Review

2019 was a productive year for the Public Health Data & Training Center (Data Center) at the Institute for Public Health, particularly for multidisciplinary student trainees, Data Center colleagues and Faculty Scholars who collaborated on written contributions to national journals and other publications. Center Manager Anne Trolard supervised trainees Eleanor Bergquist (Public Health), Branson Fox […]

Next steps in sexual health

Sexual health is now a regional priority for St. Louis, as identified by the regional coalition, St. Louis Partnership for a Healthy Community. Rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs) continue to increase in St. Louis as well as nationally, while public health funding continues to decline. Missouri’s congenital syphilis rates have increased 218 percent (from […]

Patients seeking sexual health care more likely to visit emergency rooms despite clinics being located closer to home, study says

Written by Kim Furlow, communications manager for the Institute for Public Health Gonorrhea and chlamydia infections are prevalent here in St. Louis and across the county, and left untreated can result in serious complications such as infertility and pelvic inflammatory disease. These infections are transmitted through sexual contact, and can be diagnosed at a clinic, […]

Learning more about precision medicine

Written by Anne Trolard, manager for the Public Health Data and Training Center at the Institute for Public Health An article in my inbox on precision medicine caught my eye recently, reminding me I had wanted to learn more about this buzz-word in healthcare. The article, in WUSTL’s The Source, describes precision medicine (PM) as […]

Sexually transmitted infections among adults

Written by Aishwarya Nagar, research assistant and Anne Trolard, manager of the Public Health Data and Training Center, with support from the Harvey A. Friedman Center for Aging staff at the Institute for Public Health Missouri and the St. Louis region consistently observe rates of gonorrhea and chlamydia that are higher than the national average. […]

Tackling the high rates of STIs in the St. Louis region with data

Approximately 3,000 people are tested for gonorrhea and chlamydia in the Barnes-Jewish Hospital emergency department (ED) each year, and until recently 70-80% were lost-to-follow-up. A number of factors contributed to this high rate, including the lack of a robust mechanism in the ED for follow-up care and incorrect contact information. With funding from the Barnes-Jewish […]

Data visualization skill lab

The university offered a class this fall that combined data visualization with real-world crime data. This class was the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Art’s course “Capstone in Design 1: Form and Function.” It included a Data Visualization Skill Lab in which students formed interdisciplinary teams to explore crime data from St. Louis City. […]

Data center presents on collaborations at APHA

Ben Cooper, MPH, manager of the Institute’s Public Health Data and Training Center, recently attended the annual meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) and offered two presentations on recent collaborative projects. The first, “Novel approaches to obesity surveillance using population level data,” involved a partnership with the St. Louis City Department of Health […]

Meet FRED

Written by Keith G. Taylor, FRED data officer at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis FRED® is a web-based aggregator of economic and social science time series data operated by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, which provides a set of tools to find, download, analyze, visualize, and otherwise understand these data. Let’s deconstruct that […]

Studying St. Louis, sexually-transmitted infections, and superusers

Written by Ben Cooper, MPH, manager of the Public Health Data and Training Center at the Institute for Public Health St. Louis is known for many things… our beloved Cardinals, frozen custard, and toasted ravioli to name a few. Regrettably, another thing we are known for are the high rates of sexually transmitted infections (STIs), […]

OKCupid and digging in to big data

Written by Ben Cooper, MPH, manager of the Public Health Data & Training Center at the Institute for Public Health We’ve all heard the term “big data” tossed around a lot lately. As someone who has been working with data of all shapes and sizes for nearly two decades, I’ve learned that it isn’t the […]

Data center to work with faculty scholar on Sickle Cell Project

Sickle Cell Disease Blood Cells

The Public Health Data and Training Center at the Institute for Public Health at Washington University in St. Louis will work with Allison King, MD, MPH, institute scholar and assistant professor in the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, on a project to help improve care to patients with sickle cell disease (SCD). […]