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by Lynette Yarger

July 05, 2022

Bias in not just in HealthCare: Algorithmic equity in the hiring of underrepresented IT job candidates

published in Online Information Review, Special Issue on Social and Cultural Biases in Information, Algorithms, and Systems by Lynette Yarger, Fay Cobb Payton, Bikalpa Neupane; picked up in IEEE Spectrum Feature 

#AlgorithmicBias #AI #Bias #TalentManagement #Tech #DesignJustice 

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by Fay Cobb Payton

June 27, 2022

Fay CObb Payton (Presenter), The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) AI Symposium – Health Care Panel

Fay Cobb Payton (Presenter), The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) AI Symposium – Health Care Panel

#AI #Bias #HealthCare #Race  #UnderservedGroups

Watch Via YouTube

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by Fay Cobb Payton

June 20, 2022

Fay Cobb Payton (Panelists) for National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation (NIHCM), Who Gets Health Care and Why: AI, Race and Health Equity

#AI #Bias #HealthCare #Race 

Rapid advances in artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming the way physicians and hospitals view and provide medical care. Yet, the latest evidence suggests the common practice of race-correction in clinical AI often exacerbates longstanding inequities in health outcomes and the type of health care received by Black Americans, Latinos, Asian Americans, and other medically underserved groups.

Algorithms that correct for race are currently used to inform treatment across specialties, including obstetrics, cardiology, nephrology, and oncology, even though race has not been proven to be a reliable indicator of genetic differences.

View Infographic

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by Lynette Kvasny Yarger

June 13, 2022

Managing Hypervisibility in the HIV Prevention Information Seeking Practices of Black Female College Students

published in Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology by Lynette Kvasny Yarger and Fay Cobb Payton

 #HealthCare #UX #InformationSeeking #BlackWomen #Hypervisibility

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by Fay Cobb Payton

June 08, 2022

Text Mining Mental Health Reports for Issues Impacting Today’s College Students: Qualitative Study

published in Journal of Medical Internet Research – Mental Health (JMIR Mental Health) by Fay Cobb Payton, Lynette Kvasny Yarger, Anthony Thomas Pinter (download); Picked up by Inside Higher Education 

#NLP #TextMining #MentalHealth #CollegeStudents

Background:

A growing number of college students are experiencing personal circumstances or encountering situations that feel overwhelming and negatively affect their academic studies and other aspects of life on campus. To meet this growing demand for counseling services, US colleges and universities are offering a growing variety of mental health services that provide support and services to students in distress.

Conclusions:

Higher education institutions are actively engaged in extending mental health services and offering targeted outreach to students of color. Cluster analysis identified that institutions are devoting more and innovative resources in response to the growing number students who experience mental health concerns. However, there is a need to focus on proactive approaches to mitigate the causes of mental health and the aftermath of a negative experience, particularly violence and sexual assault. Such strategies can potentially influence how students navigate their health information seeking and how information and communication technologies, including mobile apps, can partially address the needs of college students.

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by KaMar Galloway

May 05, 2016

Voting in a Digital World

***NOTE: I am a Google employee***

Who is responsible for informing the world on politics? This is a question that recently came up since it’s election season and both U.S. politicians and technology companies are experimenting with getting the word out to people -- like you! Check out some of the many ways social media is being leveraged to get you out the house and to the polls.

Facebook shows you a political card in your newsfeed and prompts you to take the following action(s):

  • “Share You’re Registered” turns you into a voting advocate by encouraging you to post a politically driven message to your family and friends
  • “Register Now” directs you to a U.S. government website so that you can register to vote
  • “Find your polling location” shows you where your polling location is after typing in your address. How simple is that?

                                          

         

Google

  • Reminds you to vote by telling you exactly when your state’s primary/caucus is via Google Now Cards.
  • Makes you aware of new search features to find out more about specific candidates “Ted Cruz” and their stances on various political issues like “Hillary Clinton economic policies”
  • Allows you to follow the results in state primaries/caucuses by searching for “primary results”

                

           

Snapchat

  • Turns you into a digital voting advocate among your Snapchat followers by allowing you select a paid Snapchat filter -- instead of your go to photo filter
  • Encourages you to follow the political scene in your local primary/caucus by watching a curated Snapchat story

              

           

Pretty cool stuff right? In a day and age where newspaper subscriptions are on the decline and social media is soaring among millennials, technology companies are starting to fill the information void. As a computer science teacher, I love this because it showcases how society directly impacts how we -- the people -- make decisions to vote, entertain and even plan family vacations. One thing to consider though is how this affects people who don’t have access to these resources. Are technology companies still responsible? What about newspaper publications and other media entities?

Let us know your thoughts and remember to vote in local, state and national elections!

#tech #voting #knowtheissues #election2016

References
On the road to the 2016 elections with Google Search (2016)
Facebook Asks People To Vote And Tell Friends, Shows Nearest Polling Place (2014)
Bernie Sanders launches 'Feel the Bern' Snapchat filters in lead up to Iowa caucuses (2016)

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by Marcel Souffrant

May 04, 2016

Our Family Jewels

Our Family Jewels is the radio show DJ’d by my brother, Jules, and his co-host Steve, at Middlebury College in Vermont.  The show is takes place each Sunday at 7pm, during what is referred to as “Hump Hour” at Middlebury.  Jules and Steve have organized a show that plays songs related to sex or the sex lives of them and their friends, in one way or another.  While playing a diverse range of genres they offer segments titled, “Story time with Steve”, “Pillow Talk”, and “Reachin’ and Teachin’”.  These segments share entertaining personal experiences, little known facts or relevant news related to sexual health, with each week ending in a text from our parents expressing their enjoyment and sometimes surprise, from the last episode.

When the show first aired, my roommates and I sat in our living room listening in as Steve and Jules shared stories and played music.  I found myself in fits of laughter during the segments and was almost as entertained by our family group text as I was by Our Family Jewels.  Through the jokes and lightheartedness, I wanted to be sure to remind him of the importance of safe and consensual sex.  The topic of sex is not one we shy away from in my home.  From a young age, our parents were very clear about the importance of safety and our intimacy being consensual, a discussion many parents choose to avoid.  In spirit of the radio show, MyHealthImpactNetwork offers readers the opportunity to learn more about health in a general sense. The Health Facts section of the site, speaks to the health literacy of our nation.  Health literacy is defined by the National Network of Libraries of Medicine as being "the degree to which individuals have the capacity to obtain, process, and understand basic health information and services needed to make appropriate health decisions."  Unfortunately, levels of health literacy are low, with only 13% of the population between the ages of 16 and 49 at a proficient level.  This interferes with a patient’s ability to make educated decisions on their health and have the necessary conversations regarding their health status with their respective healthcare providers.

I am glad that my brother has found an entertaining way to make the discussion of sex and its health implications more comfortable for his peers.  It is important that we are able to take responsibility for our own health.  This ties into being literate, but also falls in the hands of others to provide the necessary support to those who are not yet comfortable with their knowledge of health.  Decisions made regarding one’s health can have lifelong implications, making it imperative that a basic level of health literacy can be met.

If you would like to look into health literacy or other areas of health, there is the opportunity to do so at https://myhealthimpactnetwork.org/health-facts/cat/health-literacy.  The National Network of Libraries of Medicine also offers information on health literacy and can be found at http://nnlm.gov/outreach/consumer/hlthlit.html#definitions.  To listen in to Our Family Jewels you can follow the link to Middlebury College Radio, http://wrmc.middlebury.edu/.  My brother’s show airs on Sundays from 7pm - 8pm, enjoy!

Figure 1: http://tfosuccess.com/sexual-health/
Figure 2: http://www.kent.gov.uk/social-care-and-health/health/sexual-health

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by KaMar Galloway and Dr. Fay Cobb Payton

March 11, 2016

Don’t Be Fooled. The Apple FBI iPhone Dispute Also Affects You

Apple, a well-regarded [tech] company is usually in the media for bringing to market some of the most beautifully designed devices in the consumer and education space. Products like the iPhone and iPad have transcended how people consume technology and entertain themselves at a moment’s glance. New macbooks have almost a cult like following for college students as they prepare and study for future jobs that didn’t exist 10 years ago.            

More recently though, the company name has been tossed around for a dispute with the FBI, the nation’s prime federal enforcement organization, over the unlocking of an iPhone used by the killers in the 2015 San Bernardino terrorist attack. There’s been countless articles explaining Apple’s stance, the FBI stance, and so forth and so on but what about your stance? How exactly does this case affect you or is it an overblown media story from large corporations and government agencies?             

Essentially, the lack of strong encryption on consumer devices can lead to hackers breaching the defenses of retail chains, banks, the federal government and even HOSPITALS!

Yet, hacking has become what seems to be a typical event.  In 2015, the U.S. Office of Personnel Management experienced a data breach exposing the personal information of over 22 million current and former employees (and even those that applied for employment via its portal). Health care organizations and your health data are not exempt from such comprises.  For instance, Premera data breach exposed medical claims and financial information of 11 million customers, and Anthem’s 2015 data compromised the personal information about more than 80 million people.  Why is this a major concern?  As more healthcare organizations engage in network arrangements and data sharing, your personal information is likely to become more exposed.

How important is this data to healthcare organizations? In a recent NPR news segment, a California hospital paid a ransom “worth $17,000 to hackers holding its computer data hostage raised new concerns about bigger targets.”  While not all organizations will pay ransoms, no industry is exempt and neither are we, as individuals.  Being mindful of our data, its uses and our use of devices/systems/networks and even social media requires some degree of discernment.  After all, we are in the digital age of the Internet of Things.

Continue to follow @myhealthimpact on Twitter for more information on the connection between the Internet of Things and healthcare. #IoT, #healthcare #databreach

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by Marcel Souffrant

February 25, 2016

Mind Games

I remember playing high school football and being told that the game is as much physical as it was mental.  I spent hours each week in the training room, film room, weight room, or practice field preparing for the game ahead, and wanting nothing more but to win.  Like most athletes, we played through injuries, and it was expected, but head trauma was treated differently.  I have clear memories of teammates, and even my younger brother, sitting out for multiple games because of concussions.  I had friends end their involvement in all contact sports because of the head injuries they incurred, while still in high school.  During my short athletic career I watched head injuries be taken increasingly serious through the improvement of preventative measures like helmets, and more stringent recovery procedures for athletes.

The new film, Concussion, starring Will Smith, takes a look into the NFL’s gradual shift in perspective concerning the nature of the repetitive collisions that define the game.  The movie speaks to the reluctance of the organization to accept any wrongdoing, as well as their hesitance to buy into the daily dangers presented by the game to those who play.  The film features footage of the car crash that led to the fiery death of Justin Strzelczyk, a former member of the Pittsburgh Steelers, in-game collisions, and a reenactment of Dave Duerson’s suicide.  These clips are woven throughout the film to portray the urgency needed by those who are at risk for chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), found in many former NFL players due to repeated trauma on the brain, resulting in concussions. CTE showed its head through lapses in memory, headaches, sensitivity to light, outbursts, depression, and a gamut of other debilitating symptoms.

As the discussion surrounding mental illness continues to grow, I am reminded that ailments of the brain go unseen.  There is no visible bruise, no blood or fractures that we can see, but the recovery is just as severe.  I am glad to see an increased vigilance paid towards mental illness, but hope the conversation about CTE does not limit the scope to end at how the NFL will use the emerging research, but instead to a broader perspective of caring for mental illnesses is adapted.  As I age I do not only worry for my childhood sports heroes, but also for the plethora of people dealing with untreated mental illnesses.  We must continue to be proactive to fight the stigma of mental illness, in all aspects of society.

Follow us @myhealthimpact on Twitter for more on #health and #tech topics.

 

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by KaMar Galloway

February 17, 2016

Cam Newton Ain’t The Only One Taking An Online Beating

Not so fast. Maybe the world has moved on from Super Bowl 50 but not me. Since my hometown Panthers lost for only the second time this season, I’ve been contemplating writing this piece. Why? Because it attacks something I admire and has frankly grown to love over the years. Not only did millennials grow up with social media..we practically created it. I’ve been fortunate enough to watch several generations of social media evolve: from the Myspace era, to the Zuckerberg era and now the ephemeral messaging era known to many as Snapchat me that..mood!

              Cam Newton and Friends

For all the glory and praise that social media has brought to the world so has its ability to criticize us..particularly Black people in the media. If you don’t know where I am going with this then let’s start with the name Cam Newton or as mainstream media has wrongfully labeled a thug or villain. Now obviously everyone is entitled to their opinion but how much hate is too much in such a connected world?

Delivering a nasty message is always only a click away and it ain’t just Meek Millz and Kanye..everyone has Twitter fingers. From likes and hearts to retweet this repost that, we live in a society that’s built on the rise and fall of celebrities, athletes, actors and actresses. In fact, social media for the wonderful things it’s done has created a new mediums of abuse like cyberbullying. It’s no longer just a scene in horror movies. When the pressure mounts to be too much, real lives are lost!

What was once considered a harmless and closed argument at the local barbershop is now considered a public conversation overtaken by hashtags and trending topics. Cam Newton might be 6’5’’ and 245 but even Superman has a Kryptonite.

All it takes is one tweet multiplied by X people to cause the person behind the profile to disappear forever. Choose your words -  I mean - your tweets wisely.

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In Partnership with: National Science Foundation