Researchers at the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) www.urmc.rochester.edu are working on two training projects that will run from 2015 to 2018 to help improve maternal and mental health in low and middle income countries by harnessing information technology and social media.
The first project titled “eCapacity Development and Growth” is being led by Eric Caine M.D., Chair of the Department of Psychiatry. Researchers from Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines and Mongolia will be trained to use mobile technology, social media, and big data to study if and when populations are under mental stress. One potential application would use a program to scour Twitter for certain key words that signal a population under more mental stress than usual.
The second project led by Timothy Dye, PhD, Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology and Director of Biomedical Informatics at the university’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute and Deborah Ossip, PhD, Professor of Public Health Sciences and Oncology will start to train teams from Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Bolivia, and Honduras to use information along with communication technologies to address in country maternal health problems.
Cye and Ossip’s project MundoComm www.fic.nih.gov/Grants/Search/Pages/ecapacity -TW009697.aspx will improve maternal health which has stagnated in some Latin American countries in recent years. The program will provide online and in-country training on the use of information communication.
Costa Rica is a regional hub for technology and health in Latin America and serves as the base for the initiative. This project links the URMC with Fogarty trainees and other faculty from three medical schools and community organizations to foster technology innovation and expand the use of health technology to improve maternal health in the region.
“As we move into the era of big data, we are well positioned to be a leader in biomedical informatics and data science,” said Stephen Dewhurst PhD, Vice Dean for Research at URMC. “These two projects really build on the research strengths we already have in place.