Neighborhoods are complex systems with spatial signals that help decode their stories. We integrate innovative GIScience, public health, and statistical approaches to explore, understand, and promote healthy places.
Research Program Themes
1.
Defining how place impacts & interacts with health
We focus on complexity surrounding the measurement, mapping, and distillation of multiple health outcomes and associated social determinants of health at varying scales, to gain a greater understanding of disease prevalence.
2.
Identifying disparities of access & health outcomes
In collaboration with clinical and public health teams, we explore the relationship of accessibility as a function of health outcomes, from food access disparities to availability of evidence-based medications for opioid use disorder.
3.
Building engaged, participatory infrastructures
We collaborate with policymakers, community members, researchers, and software engineers to brainstorm ways of integrating complex information about the natural, social, health, & built environments — using human-centered design thinking.
4.
Integrating spatial thinking in research design
Spatial effects can violate core components of the standard counterfactual framework used for evaluation, making treatment effects difficult to assess. We refine and improve methods to consider & account for spatial interactions.
Select Research Projects
Since early 2020, we’ve made spatial statistics accessible in the web browser, encouraging users to explore the pandemic from its start to today. In the latest push, we’re humanizing the data with oral histories from across the country. We also explore how regional social determinants of health impact COVID.
Place and Social-Spatial Networks
We have multiple projects exploring how neighborhood connections between people can be better understood to prioritize places, individuals, or groups for life-saving and harm-reducing health interventions.
Measuring Opioid Risk Environments
We are the geospatial core leads at the JCOIN Methodology and Advanced Analytics Resource Center, and collaborate with many other teams to measure opioid risk environments, access to medication for opioid use disorder, and implement quasi-experimental research designs to evaluate spatial impacts.
Decision Supports for Environmental Justice
A handful of key metrics―tree cover, air pollution estimates, heat island effects, traffic volumes, and social vulnerability index― help to reveal where in the city people face particular challenges. Following years of collaboration with different groups, we’re now fine-tuning ChiVes to support community efforts.
Latest News from HeRoP Lab
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Welcoming HeRoP’s 2021 Spatial Data Science Fellows
The HeRoP Lab is is delighted to welcome six talented and passionate Spatial Data Science (SDS) Fellows this summer. Learn more about these students and their research projects. Read more
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Call for HEROP Summer Fellows
Healthy Regions & Policies Lab Summer Fellowship Program The Healthy Regions & Policies Lab at the Center for Spatial Data Science is hiring multiple full- and/or part-time Summer Fellows for University of Chicago students (undergraduate or graduate) over the summer of 2021. Fellows will meet with project teams for weekly check-ins, and/or as needed. Read more
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How sure are we about the effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines?
Once a vaccine is approved for distribution to the full population and no longer just to a test population, scientists expect the efficacy rates to change slightly. A new statistical tool can help assess the strength of results from clinical trials for vaccines and other studies. The tool has just been published in the Journal of Read more
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Geographic Data Science Lab Brown Bag
The Geographic Data Science Lab at the University of Liverpool invited the HeRoP Lab to talk about their work on integrating geographic data science thinking into public health policy & practice. If you missed the presentation live, you can now catch the rerun at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VcHwPNd-nck. Integrating Geographic Data Science into Public Health & Policy A Read more
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Women in Data Science: Chicago
You are cordially and very enthusiastically invited to Women in Data Science (WiDS): Chicago 2021 on Friday, March 12, from 5-8 pm CST.✨ WiDS: Chicago is an independent event organized to coincide with the annual Global Women in Data Science (WiDS) Conference held at Stanford University and an estimated 150+ locations worldwide. You may have Read more
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Spatial Data Science Mini Grant
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ admin_label=”section” _builder_version=”3.22″][et_pb_row admin_label=”row” _builder_version=”3.25″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”][et_pb_column type=”4_4″ _builder_version=”3.25″ custom_padding=”|||” custom_padding__hover=”|||”][et_pb_text admin_label=”Text” _builder_version=”3.27.4″ background_size=”initial” background_position=”top_left” background_repeat=”repeat”] The University of Chicago’s Center for Spatial Data Science has been pioneering innovative ways to teach students spatial methods through coding in R, PostgreSQL/PostGIS, Python, and other technical languages. These training opportunities help diverse groups of women Read more
Looking for a research experience?
We are not hiring other staff or UIUC student hourly researchers at this time. To get on the waitlist, contact us with your interest and resume.
The Healthy Regions & Policies Lab is supported in part by the following organizations.
Healthy Regions & Policies Lab 