Projects
The Public Health Data & Training Center at the Institute for Public Health alongside the Center Co-Director, Faculty Scholar and Associate Professor of Infectious Diseases, Hilary Reno, MD, PhD are supporting local health departments by developing the region’s first comprehensive tool to track the ever-increasing number of sexually transmitted infections. This platform is one piece of a long-term strategy to address the region’s high infection rates, and is a collaboration between local public health departments, sexual health providers, and academics. Specifically, the tool is a regional sexual health database of comprehensive, “real time” information reflecting positive and negative STI cases.
The world understands now more than ever before, the power of data to shape our lives. When it comes to public health data, the Centers for Disease Control simply states “Data saves lives. Better data saves more lives.” The City of St. Louis Department of Health (DOH) expressed concern about a lack of organization and standardization of its data assets. The aim of this project is to assess the DOH’s data infrastructure and capacity, and develop recommendations for improvement.
This report serves as a living document of data assets that DOH employees and public health practitioners can use as a reference tool and as a guide for planning ongoing data strategy and improvements. Challenges are paired with recommendations and, where possible, the cost and/or feasibility of each recommendation is noted. We hope other local public health authorities find this assessment useful and adaptable for their own needs.
The Public Health Data & Training Center is responsible for maintaining two databases related to violence prevention for Life Outside of Violence (LOV), the Hospital-based Violence Intervention Program.
Oversight of these data is provided by a committee of the STL-HVIP body, and are available to researchers and LOV program evaluators by way of an application process.
STL-HVIP
A repository of clinical information on all hospital visits made for violent injuries from all four level-one trauma centers in the region
LOV
A program facilitated by case workers designed to prevent recidivism for violent injuries at the four participating hospitals.
Completion of these forms does not guarantee access to the requested data.
Collaborators
Elizabeth Daniels, MD is a fellow in Pediatric Infectious Diseases. Her interests include pediatric HIV, sexually transmitted infections, medical history, and medical education. Her fellowship research focuses on missed opportunities for congenital syphilis prevention and social factors associated with congenital syphilis. She enjoys exploring St. Louis with her husband, daughter, and corgi.
Dr. Marks specializes in clinical infectious diseases with a special focus on infectious complications in people who inject drugs. She attends on the general infectious diseases consult service teaching fellows, residents, and students. She also sees patients in infectious diseases outpatient clinic where she oversees the Bridge to Health program for patients with injection drug use associated infections. The Bridge to Health program provides outpatient infectious diseases and substance use disorder care with additional multidisciplinary support including case management and health coaches. The Bridge to health program has a special emphasis on providing hepatitis C treatment as well as flexible antibiotic options (OPAT and transition to oral antibiotics) for patients with serious injection related infections such as endocarditis and osteomyelitis.
Publications
View the latest publications from our team and collaborators.
- CONCLUSION: ML can be used to identify new firearm injury encounters and may be particularly useful in studies assessing re-injuries.
- CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study inform the implementation of the Life Outside of Violence programme and offer a roadmap to other hospital-based violence intervention programmes […]
- CONCLUSION: ML can be used to identify new firearm injury encounters and may be particularly useful in studies assessing re-injuries.
- CONCLUSIONS: Findings from this study inform the implementation of the Life Outside of Violence programme and offer a roadmap to other hospital-based violence intervention programmes […]
- There is an unmet need for developing drugs for the treatment of gonorrhea, due to rapidly evolving resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae against antimicrobial drugs used […]
- No vaccines and few chemoprophylaxis options exist for the prevention of bacterial sexually transmitted infections (STIs) (specifically syphilis, chlamydia, and gonorrhea). These infections have increased […]
- No abstract
- CONCLUSIONS: Sexually transmitted infection testing sites decreased during the pandemic with lasting impact in one area of the Midwest. Resources to support STI infrastructure should […]