Graduate Student Internship Program

This internship has been filled.

Nevada

Research Associate
Nevada State Health Division, Bureau of Family Health Services, Reno, NV
Skill Area: Data Analysis and Monitoring

Agency Information

Nevada Bureau of Family Health Services is the state Maternal and Child Health agency. In order to assess Nevada MCH status indicators, the Bureau contracted with Nevada Center for Health Statistics and Informatics at University of Nevada, Reno to conduct a special module on MCH indicators through Nevada Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) project. The data collection activities on children health care access, oral health and childhood immunization have started in 2007 and will continue on 2008. The internship position (Research Associate) will join the research team for the data analysis and reporting on this project.

Purpose, goals, and objectives of internship

Dr. Wei Yang is a Professor in Health Informatics at the School of Public Health. He is one of the co-principal investigator the project of Nevada Behavior Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS). Meanwhile, Dr. Yang is the P.I. who subcontracted with Nevada Bureau of Family Health Services to provide advanced analysis on Nevada MCH status indicators. The data collection activities on children health care access, oral health and childhood immunization have started in 2007 and will continue on year 2008. The data cleansing and formatting for year 2007 data is undergoing. The internship position (data analyst) will join the research team and will focus on data analysis and reporting for the data collected in 2007. It is expected that 3500-3700 completed surveys to be analyzed.

Besides demographic information and other more than 70 questions from “Core” or other modules in Nevada BRFSS Project, there are 10 questions special designed regarding Nevada children healthcare, daycare, oral health and immunization. The example questions include “Does this child have any kind of health care coverage, including health insurance, prepaid plans such as HMOs, or government plans such as Medicare or Nevada Check Up?”, “Do you have one person you think of as this child’s personal doctor or health care provider?” “How long has it been since you last visited a dentist or a dental clinic for any reason? (Include visits to dental specialists, such as orthodontists)”, “For this child, has there ever been a time when you have taken him/her to get vaccinations from the child’s usual source of medical care, but could not get them?”

The internship position (Research Associate) is expected to work closely with Dr. Yang and other epidemiologists and biostatisticians in the Nevada Center for Health Statistics and Informatics, to analyze and disseminate the data, and to present the results. SAS package will be used for weighted survey frequencies and weighted survey logistic models for checking the relationships between above mentioned indicators and other contributing factors. It is expected that at least one peer reviewed publication could be produced by this internship position.

Data or analytic tasks and activities

Will be part of data analysis team using weighted descriptive and multiple logistic regression and will play key roles in literature reviews and report writing.

Data or analytic skills required

With based skill of SAS software. Understand the analytical results and be able to write analytical reports which should publishable as official agency report and peer reviewed publications.

Supervisors

Dr. Wei Yang, M.D., Ph.D., Professor of Epidemiology/Biostatistics and Director of Nevada Center for Health Statistics and Informatics will be the advisor for this project. William Lee, Biostatistician II at the Center will be the daily basis supervisor.

Internship begins

Later May or early June

Housing

There will be plenty of availabilities of campus nearby apartments during the summer semester.

Transportation

The Campus is near Reno Downtown and the work site has public transportation.

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