STEM News Highlights
Technology and Medicine:
A competition has emerged into the world of technology and medicine that encourages ideas to validate and innovate synthetic health data systems to improve research in quality in care. The Department of Health and Human Services wants to investigate advanced abilities of synthetic health data engines to help patients make smart and informed healthcare decisions. The ability to encourage ideas to innovate synthetic health data systems allows for support in quality research, and with this innovation a health data system, Synthea can be developed. Synthea is described as, “Synthea is an open-source synthetic patient generator that models the medical history of synthetic patients. The resulting data are free from cost, privacy and security restrictions and have the potential to support a variety of academia, research, industry and government initiatives.” The HHS’ Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) began this competition to support data research infrastructure. Individuals that wish to enter must go through a phase in which you will write a proposal for the first and develop prototypes for the second phase. There will be six prizes varying from $10,000 to $50,000.
Citation:
Harris, Melissa. “ONC Seeks Synthetic Health Data Engine to Support Researchers.” Governmentciomedia.com, 22 Jan. 2021, 13:09, https://governmentciomedia.com/onc-seeks-synthetic-health-data-engine-support-researchers
Psychology:
New studies coming into light are showing that the mental health of college students has plummeted within the age of the COVID-19 virus. A report given by ONE on January 7, stated that researchers have identified that the students most at risk are women, Asians, students under 25, lower income students, and those who know/knew someone with COVID-19. Matthew Browning and his colleagues conducted a survey in which 2,500 students from seven public universities across the United States will have their mental health assessed. The survey came back with the results that 85 percent of the students surveyed said that they experienced a high/moderate impact to their mental health. Of the 85 percent, 45 percent were highly impacted and 40 percent were moderately impacted. With these results, Browning believes, “We need to address students’ mental well-being before we think about the best way to deliver online classes during COVID.” College students have always had an impact on their mental health, but with the presence of the virus there are new obstacles to face and overcome.
Citation:
Gupta, Sujata. “The COVID-19 Pandemic Made U.S. College Students' Mental Health Even Worse.” Science News, 22 Jan. 2021, www.sciencenews.org/article/covid-19-coronavirus-pandemic-us-college-students-mental-health.