Place-based Health Informatics Research Education (PHIRE) Program

University Of Arizona, Tucson AZ

Investigators

Abstract

The discipline of biomedical informatics is primed to foster scientific innovation and promote health for all. To truly harness the potential of multitude of methods, theories, and application in the field of informatics, there is pressing need to enrich the research community by expanding participation from a range of relevant disciplinary perspectives. Recent educational research suggests that intentional connections to place, community, and local needs may be critical to welcoming and retaining individuals in biomedical research. Place-based education, a form of community-based learning, aims for purposeful student engagement that is responsive to local societal and health needs, including its history, people, and ecology. Such learning cultivates critical and analytical skills and actively engages students in real-world problem solving and holds much potential for increasing student engagement in scientific research as well as in interdisciplinary areas such as informatics. In this project, we propose to develop a truly interdisciplinary, Place-based Health Informatics Research Education (PHIRE; pronounced as “fire”) program that brings together expertise from data science, systems science and engineering, health informatics, and public health and infuses regional assets and needs from the community into the training and curricula. The vision of the PHIRE training program is to recruit and prepare a talented pool of 50 undergraduate students (10 students per year) to conduct scientific research in health informatics with an inherent focus on addressing biomedical and public health challenges. The PHIRE training program includes three major components: (1) a 12-week summer research experience, (2) a thematic co-curricular training in health informatics, and (3) preparation for graduate school or other research careers in health informatics.