Big Data Health
Science Center

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has awarded approximately $1.6 million to Arnold School faculty to launch a training program aimed at preparing underrepresented minority students to pursue careers in health data science. Based out of the USC Big Data Health Science Center, the project will be led by co-director Xiaoming Li (Department of Health Promotion, Education, and Behavior), Electronic Health Records Core lead Jiajia Zhang (Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics), and co-director Bankole Olatosi (Department of Health Services Policy and Management).

The BDHSC continues to support interdisciplinary research collaborations that make use of big data to address important problems in population health, clinical care, and healthcare delivery. The purpose of the BDHSC Pilot Project Program is to stimulate and promote interdisciplinary research in Big Data health sciences by supporting meritorious applications that utilize existing data sources in order to address critical issues related to health behavior, patient care, healthcare delivery, and population health. In its fourth year, the BDHSC awarded nearly $160,000 to 8 investigators from across the USC system. Please click to learn more about the investigators and their research projects.

In response to PAR-21-258, “NIAID Research Education Program Advancing the Careers of a Diverse Research Workforce,” the BDHSC was recently awarded its Big Data Analytics Emerging Scholar (e-Scholar) Training Program for underrepresented minority undergraduate students. The training program aims to foster a more diverse research environment at USC and across the state and encourage underrepresented minority undergraduate students to pursue Big Data research in the prevention, treatment, discovery, prediction, and forecasting of HIV, COVID-19, and other infectious, immunologic, and allergic diseases. Application deadline is August 1st, 2023.

The University of South Carolina is now an affiliate member of the Atlanta Research Data Center (ARDC), which is a partnership between the U.S. Census Bureau and a consortium of universities. Membership to the center provides USC faculty and students with access to restricted U.S. Census data. Among other benefits, this membership allows USC affiliates access to fine resolution data (e.g., on individuals, specific businesses or firms, and high geographical resolution), otherwise unavailable complete datasets and additional variables, and longitudinal data to track individuals over time.

Shan Qiao has been awarded $3.5 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to study disruptions to HIV-related care during the COVID-19 pandemic. The associate professor of health promotion, education, and behavior (HPEB) will work with other researchers at the South Carolina SmartState Center for Healthcare Quality (CHQ) and Big Data Health Science Center (BDHSC) to determine how these impacts affect HIV treatment and outcomes as well as inform efforts to build resilient health care systems and communities that can be part of the effective response to any future public health emergencies.

The USC Big Data Health Science Center (BDHSC) continues to contribute to workforce development through its National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Short-Term Institutional Research Training Grants (T35). The program goes beyond the regular and traditional course of graduate studies by incorporating new courses, seminars, workshops, and collaborative activities during the summer. Please meet our 2023 cohort and learn more about their research interests.