The Undergraduate Research Symposium returned to the Illini Union this year.
Community Health senior Tyler Roberson gave an oral presentation on housing insecure students.
Sixty-five students representing all five undergraduate majors in the College of Applied Health Sciences made presentations about their work at the campus-wide 2022 Undergraduate Research Symposium. It was the largest contingent of AHS students to take part in the event, which began in 2008 and ran annually until the COVID pandemic pre-empted it in 2020 and made it a virtual event in 2021. This year’s event took place on April 28 in the Illini Union.
Seven students in the community health, kinesiology, and interdisciplinary health sciences degree programs were invited to give oral presentations of their research, while the remaining students participated in poster sessions. Participating students included 37 Edmund J. James Scholars; seven participants in the AHS Students Pursuing Applications, Research, and Knowledge—or SPARK—program, which introduces outstanding freshmen to research; 12 participants in the Student Aging Researchers in Training—or START—program, which places undergraduate scholars in labs across the college; and eight scholars in the Mannie L. Jackson Illinois Academic Enrichment and Leadership Program, a college-wide support program for underrepresented and first-generation students, student-athletes, and those recognized by the President Awards Program and Educational Opportunities Program.
Drake Materre credits his mother for his introduction to (and interest in) nutrition
Food is only one element of Drake Materre’s education platform
Master of Public Health student Drake Materre is a man of many interests: education, politics, music, organizing, religion. But the one probably closest to his heart is nutrition.
Except when Materre thinks about nutrition, it means more than food. Materre’s mother, Lauren, created Natural Path Nutrition Inc. (NPN) in 2012 in Chicago with a mission to provide nutrition education to young, inner-city children and senior citizens. NPN has conducted nutrition education programs at elementary schools and assisted living centers while offering healthy food options.
“At first I would say, ‘We teach nutrition education. But as I got older, it’s difficult for me to just say, ‘Oh yeah, you need to eat these healthy foods,’” Materre said. “A lot of people may not have the time to cook and prepare the food or have access to food. I do teach nutrition education, but I always do it with a political edge, where I empower people to fight for better health.”
Materre credits his mother for his introduction to (and interest in) nutrition. He accompanied her to information sessions with senior citizens and children and before long, he created some nutrition education programs of his own. He also works with a food distribution center in Urbana in collaboration with an organization called Silver Hearts, which aids the underserved Silverwood neighborhood. Additionally, Materre is involved with pop-up pantries in Champaign and Urbana.
But food is only one element of Materre’s education platform.
“While taking community health courses, I started to understand that health can really be an area of focus that is necessary when it comes to talking about Black liberation,” he said, explaining that people of color, particularly black school-aged children, lack access to fresh fruits and vegetables.
“I like to educate people on why they may not have that access, why they may not have that capability. Giving them that political and social insight, in terms of, why members of the community may not be able to eat these type of foods.”
Materre explains that the lack of access to healthy food options lies not only in the food deserts of some areas of Champaign-Urbana, but in the infrastructure of the cities. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), food deserts are “areas that lack access to affordable fruits, vegetables, whole grains, low-fat milk, and other foods that make up the full range of a healthy diet.”
“Being from Chicago, but really becoming a part of the (Champaign) community, there’s definitely some lack of infrastructure. Not even just in terms of food deserts, but in terms of sidewalks, and how that can be detrimental to the health of children.
“The north end of Champaign is like the Douglass Park area and Garden Hills,” he said. “These are communities that are experiencing lack of access to food. However, there is a great access to liquor stores and smoke shops. Unfortunately, Champaign has a lot of liquor stores. There are liquor stores next door to liquor stores.”
Materre said the lack of access to healthy food is exacerbated by a perceived lack of access, and that people in the community north of the university don’t feel comfortable shopping on campus.
“There is a big divide between the University and Champaign-Urbana, the city itself and the communities that are here. ‘Can I even go to Green Street and utilize a Target? Can I go to County Market and utilize County Market for my needs?’ We understand that there are people in the community that may not feel comfortable going on campus.”
Materre also works with children at Booker T. Washington, an elementary school in Champaign, to discuss identity and education.
“I’m there to help the young Black students, in terms of social emotional learning, how to deal with trauma, how to build their agency in responding to certain instances, and I believe again, that’s also part of health. Students may feel as if they don’t have the power. I tell them, if you want healthier foods, ‘If you want better foods at your lunch, you can make some noise and let that happen.’ My approach is try to organize people to increase their health, to better their health. And so nutrition is definitely a part of that. I can’t just say organize around stuff with no cause. You’ve got to be a rebel with a cause.”
For Materre, there is no easy answer to solving the problem of food insecurity, but he says the burden is not on parents, or even schools, to provide resources.
“I think the burden is on the system and structure itself that place people in these conditions that lead to negative health,” he said. “I will say, the burden is on the structure. But I believe that us as a community, we’re able to take on that accountability that responsibility and organize around our children.”
As for what comes next for him, this man of many interests has, as you might expect, many options.
“I’m a Muslim and I’m a spiritual man,” he said. “And wherever life takes me, I’m going be involved within the community in some way, shape, or form. I would love to go and get a doctorate, just so people can call me Dr. Materre, you know, that’d be cool. But really teaching, I’d just love to be a teacher. So wherever I go, if that’s a doctorate, that’s not a doctorate, I must be involved with the community and for the people.
“You know, as (late Congressman and civil rights activist) John Lewis would say, ‘Some good trouble.’ Some good trouble in order to get where we need to get to, right?”
In some rural counties of Illinois, nearly half of sampled homes with private wells had dangerous lead levels
Nearly half of the sampled homes had measurable lead in their private well water.
When KCH Assistant Professor Sarah Geiger received a grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to study private water wells, her primary focus was finding a way to mitigate the amount of lead in drinking water. She might not have expected another outcome.
Geiger, the principal investigator for a study entitled, “Drinking Water Lead Remediation Strategies for Illinois Homes with Domestic Wells,” received a grant of about $1 million from the HUD 2019 Healthy Homes Technical Study Grant Program. As researchers do, she set out to find participants for her study. But to Geiger, the participants weren’t just numbers on a to-do list.
“The rural people who I work with in my private well study have made an impact on me. We have people living in quite impoverished conditions, although they don’t seem to let it affect their self-worth. They are very salt of the earth people and gracious to us when we come to their homes. I would like to be able to tell their stories,” she said.
In the initial stage of Geiger’s project, the Illinois State Water Survey (with collaborators from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and county public health departments) measured lead levels in homes with private wells in rural areas of Peoria, Jackson, and Kane counties, finding that nearly half of the sampled homes had measurable lead.
Lead exposure can cause serious damage to children’s developing brains, so identifying elevated lead concentrations and working with homeowners and public health workers to mitigate sources of lead in water is vital, according to Walt Kelly of the Water Survey, one of Geiger’s collaborators.
For Geiger, part of the issue is a health disparity.
“Clearly not all people who are in municipal systems have clean water. I mean, that’s not even close to being true. But at least there are these mechanisms that are in place in an attempt to keep it free from lead.
Rural people have often lived on their land for generations and have intimate knowledge about its history, including the wells, plumbing, and water issues. But sometimes there is an opportunity for education when we see things that participants may not know are health hazards.”
Sarah Geiger
Assistant Professor of Kinesiology and Community Health
“I work with PFAS. There’s all this (Environmental Protection Agency) PFAS testing going on. It doesn’t test private wells. But there are PFAS in private wells, I can guarantee you. And they’re not going to be picked up, they’re going to be left out of that.”
Geiger’s passion about the subject comes through in the interview as she talks about how generous and kind people are when she and her colleagues visit homes with private wells. Most often, she visits rural, low-income communities across Illinois.
“We’ll go out and meet the well inspector, meet the plumber, meet the county health staff, and the people that will have to be there because they have to let us into their home to do the plumbing assessment. And they’re really gracious, I mean we’re bringing all these people into their home,” she said. “We try to reassure them.”
Still, Geiger said, she has to warn study participants about things the plumber might see, such as mold around plumbing fixtures. It’s not uncommon to see hand-dug basements or basements with dirt floors, Geiger said.
Sarah Geiger
“Rural people have often lived on their land for generations and have intimate knowledge about its history, including the wells, plumbing, and water issues. But sometimes there is an opportunity for education when we see things that participants may not know are health hazards,” she said.
Geiger said she tells the study participants that she and her colleague are not there to identify problems or issue fines.
“They’re receptive to (the inspections) and I think they do care about their water quality. They’re proud of their place,” she said.
What Geiger wants to emphasize is that her study is aimed at helping people remediate their well issues.
“In addition to the water testing, they get this plumbing survey, they get their well inspection. And then they potentially will get, not everybody, but those with the highest levels of lead will get this remediation.”
But in order to implement larger-scale change, especially for private well owners, government regulations need to change, she said.
“We have the Lead and Copper Rule for municipal systems where there has to be this routine testing, and mitigation if there’s an issue. Why are rural people not able to take advantage of the benefits that urban people have in terms of clean water?”
This study demonstrates that singers also tend to adjust their vocal production when in different spaces
Faculty from the Dept. of Speech and Hearing Science were involved in the planning and execution of World Voice Day, a symposium designed to build awareness of the human voice.
Researchers from SHS—including assistant professors Keiko Ishikawa, Brian Monson and Pasquale Bottalico—as well as invited speakers discussed their interdisciplinary projects illuminating voice usage and health.
At the end of the two-hour-plus event, the consensus to achieve voice clarity was: The room matters.
One of the presentations was a collaboration of Bottalico, School of Music Associate Professor Yvonne Gonzales Redman and undergraduate student Natalia Łastowiecka, who worked on a study investigating the influence of room acoustics on singers’ voice production. Clarke University Assistant Professor of Music-Voice Joshua Glasner was also part of the presentation.
The researchers said that similar research on instrumentalists suggests that musical performers may be influenced to some extent by the acoustic environment, and this study demonstrates that singers also tend to adjust their vocal production when in different spaces. Bottalico said singers were recorded singing the same musical selection—Giuseppe Giordani’s “Caro mio ben”—consecutively in five different locations on campus: Smith Memorial Room, Smith Recital Hall, KCPA Great Hall, Colwell Playhouse and the Amphitheater. Voice parameters analyzed were vibrato rate, extent, and pitch inaccuracy. Vibrato extent showed significant changes to the different acoustic environments.
The researchers said to combat any voice problems, singers should train in a variety of spaces, and that future studies should investigate functional causes of aberrant vibrato rate, and investigate how to train singers to adapt to different acoustic environments.
Dr. Ishikawa presented with Diana Orbelo of the Mayo Clinic on the “Vocal health among singers.” Orbelo talked about the importance of gargling, calling it the “rock-star quick fix.” Orbelo said gargling—she recommended water, not beer, as some rock stars preferred—can quickly relax the voice. Ishikawa talked about The Lombard Effect, which is the involuntary tendency of speakers to increase their vocal effort when speaking in loud noise to enhance the audibility of their voice.
Ishikawa said that noisy environments are difficult for anyone to speak intelligibly but they are more difficult for people with voice disorders. Most of these people undergo voice therapy as a part of their treatment, where they learn to use vocal production techniques.
“We wanted to know which technique most effectively improves intelligibility in noise and found twang was the best one, compared to operatic resonant voice and “clear speech,” she said.
“Because noise changes the way people talk—which is the Lombard effect—we thought it would make it difficult for people to use learned therapy techniques. Our recent study showed otherwise, however. People did better with using a technique called “clear speech” when they were hearing the noise. This finding was unexpected and needs further exploration,” Ishikawa said.
Orbelo added that certain sounds, such as twang, as Ishikawa mentioned or talking like a gangster—think Edward G. Robinson In “The Last Gangster”—can help cut through noisy environments.
Monson’s presentation was on the “Directivity of singing voice.” Monson talked about singers’ need to get accommodated to acoustic spaces because they “rely on auditory feedback to regulate vocal output.”
But directivity of a voice matters as much as reflective surfaces because sounds “don’t necessarily go in all directions.”
Other presenters included Dario D’Orazio from the Universita’ di Bologna, Italy, on the “Auralization of soprano;” lan Howell of the New England Conservatory of Music, who presented on “Spectrographic and perceptual analysis of the singing voice,” and Mary Pietrowicz, a Senior Research Scientist at the Illinois Applied Research Institute, presented on “Application of machine learning for voice quality detection among actors.”
KCH Dept. Head Kim Graber, left, with Bill Chittenden and Wendy Rogers, right (Photo by Michelle Hassel)
The focus of the Chittenden Symposium was on human factors in health technology, with the goal of advancing a research agenda. But according to Kinesiology and Community Health Professor Wendy Rogers, the roadmap needs to first be drawn.
Rogers was part of the final presentation on April 13 of the symposium, a collaboration between the College of Applied Health Sciences’ Kinesiology & Community Health Department (KCH) and the Grainger College of Engineering’s Department of Industrial & Enterprise Systems Engineering (ISE).
Rogers was part of a panel discussion—along with ISE Associate Professor Girish Krishnan—entitled, “Future Directions for Collaborative Opportunities.”
“What we’re talking about is relevant to what the National Academy of Engineering has proposed in terms of grand challenges,” Rogers said. “We need to have these opportunities (future symposiums) to see what each of us is doing and how we can work together.”
Rogers also talked about the need to match up research priorities with funding streams.
“Some of the things that the (National Institutes of Health) is highlighting is what we are doing here,” the Khan Professor of Applied Health Sciences said. “We want to think about how best to capitalize on our strengths to best match what their priorities are. I was excited and inspired about what we can do.”
The symposium is the vision of William and Carol Chittenden, two Illinois alums who long supported research combining Health/Kinesiology and engineering technology, including aging and later-year quality of life issues. The symposium, which began in 2015, returned this year after a five-year hiatus.
Susan Martinis, the Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation, was the first speaker of the day and said she couldn’t “imagine a timelier topic” and that the university’s response to COVID-19 was an “extraordinary national model.”
“This kind of innovation just doesn’t happen,” she said. “Our response to COVID is really part of the DNA at Illinois. Decades of investments in people and symposiums like this. The spirit of collaboration can tackle the most vexing of problems. Our bench is incredibly deep.”
AHS Dean Cheryl Hanley-Maxwell said she was “proud of the role the Department of Kinesiology and Community Health has played in organizing this important event, and grateful for our ongoing partnership with the Grainger College of Engineering.”
“The collaboration between health and engineering has led to developments that we couldn’t have imagined in the not-too-distant past,” Hanley-Maxwell said. “Virtual reality as a means of helping patients manage pain; companion robots that entertain chronically ill children while allowing them to monitor their condition; 3-D printing of personalized prosthetics; and wearable sensors that enable patients to share vital health statistics with their doctors from the comfort of their own homes. Technology is revolutionizing and improving health care, and the potential for its impact seems boundless.”
Hanley-Maxwell noted that AHS made a commitment to taking a leadership role in education and research related to health care and technology.
“I hope today’s symposium inspires further discussion, collaboration, and innovation,” she said.
“This kind of innovation just doesn’t happen. Our response to COVID is really part of the DNA at Illinois. Decades of investments in people and symposiums like this. The spirit of collaboration can tackle the most vexing of problems. Our bench is incredibly deep.”
Susan Martinis
Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation
Keynote speaker Emily Patterson, a professor in the School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences in the College of Medicine at Ohio State, talked about the need to incorporate human factors into health research, and the importance of “framing problems differently.”
Patterson was followed by four presentations, two each from ISE and KCH.
ISE Assistant Professor Abigail Wooldridge discussed the importance of health technology in improving the “handover,” meaning the transition of patient care, whether it is in the same hospital and different shifts, or to a different hospital and medical staff.
“Care transitions are a process, and the things that happen before or after that are really important. They are really crucial to patient care.”
Wooldridge said strategies are needed to augment human coding to improve care transitions and the “tension between reporting and interrogation. Social glue is what helps clinicians work together down the road.”
KCH Assistant Professor Manuel Hernandez talked about advances in wearable technology to prevent fall prevention, noting that one in four adults over the age of 65 falls each year, and that one in five falls lead to serious injury.
“In the near future, wrist bands, watches, shoes and shirts will be able to measure how much we move on a daily basis,” Hernandez said. He said this wearable technology will be able to detect any changes in movement, slowing, or gait malfunction. The use of wearable technology can mitigate or even prevent the odds of falling and reduce injuries, Hernandez said.
ISE Specialized Teaching Assistant Professor Avinash Gupta talked about the role of human interaction in designing virtual reality-based healthcare training. Among Gupta’s proposals is a virtual reality-based training environment for first responders, a 3D educational platform for healthcare students and a VR simulation training for neonatal procedures.
KCH Professor Ken Wilund wrapped up the presentations with his talk on how technology can be used to improve hemodialysis patient outcomes.
“Hemodialysis is pretty brutal,” Wilund said. “It’s a difficult, challenging life, and it’s treated pharmacologically, with 18 pills a day. It’s one of the most expensive diseases to treat. It costs about $100,000 per patient per year … pretty close to one percent of the federal budget is spent on dialysis patients.”
Wilund said his biggest questions were how to get hemodialysis (HD) patients moving more and make it sustainable, and how to get HD patients to eat fewer processed foods and less salt. Technological advances might help, Wilund said, noting that an Internet-based Positive Psych Intervention (PPI) reduced depression in HD patients, but that the iPad might not be a sustainable delivery method.
Wilund acknowledged that a personalized plan for patients was necessary, that behavior change principles need to be incorporated into treatment, and that remote treatment would be necessary to achieve long-term success.
“We have been sticking bikes in front of dialysis patients and telling them what they can’t eat… for 40 years,” Wilund said. “There has to be a better way.”
Following the presentations, Rogers and Krishnan engaged in a lively discussion with audience members on what can be done to advance collaborations and build on the momentum of the symposium.
“Seminars are great, but how do we scale this up?,” Krishnan asked. “What’s the best mechanism to get the engineers and health care researchers together?”
Rogers said, “It’s really going back and forth and making sure we’re talking to each other. We’ve talked about how to do that better to provide opportunities for both colleges.”
KCH Professor Jeff Woods, who was the master of ceremonies, suggested leveraging virtual platforms to increase collaboration, while Wilund said giving increased responsibilities to graduate students would give them more opportunities to build their CV, while giving faculty members the space for big-picture ideas.
But all in attendance agreed on one point: they need to keep in contact.
“A future meeting to spark collaborations is important,” Rogers added.
When the symposium ended, attendees—including Bill Chittenden III, son of Bill and Carol—boarded vans for the opportunity to tour the McKechnie Family LIFE Home and see demonstrations of current collaborative research in human factors and health. Directed by Dr. Rogers, the McKechnie Family LIFE Home includes a simulation of a two-bedroom home with a garage for research and development, as well as meeting and office space to support the research activities.
Watch Ingrid Schneider’s talk on COVID-constrained leisure.
Dr. Ingrid E. Schneider, Ph.D. Professor, University of Minnesota “Wrangling the waves: Coping with COVID-Constrained Leisure and its Impacts on Leisure-Time Physical Activity” Recorded Wednesday, April 6, 2022
The use of green spaces such as parks and trails has increased through the ebbs and flows of COVID-19 (Stock image)
Research has shown that leisure time physical activity in outdoor spaces has more positive health benefits than physical activity done indoors. Fully one-third of the U.S. population, however, has no access to green spaces, nor to the associated health benefits.
These were among the findings shared during the 2022 AHS Distinguished Lecturer presentation given by Dr. Ingrid Schneider, professor and eminent scholar of recreation and tourism in the Department of Forest Resources at the University of Minnesota.
Leisure time physical activity increases the immune response to viral respiratory infections. Dr. Schneider cited a study of 60,000 South Africans which found that those who exercised more had fewer hospitalizations with COVID, fewer intensive care admissions, less frequently required ventilators, and less frequently died.
“Nearly a decade ago, the America Public Health Association prioritized access to green spaces, emphasizing the need for safe, walkable communities and green spaces to promote an active lifestyle across the lifespan,” she said.
While the use of green spaces such as parks and trails has increased through the ebbs and flows of COVID-19, the ongoing pandemic also served to accentuate and compound issues of inequality.
“Communities of lower socioeconomic status and minority communities have less access to green spaces and tend to have lower quality parks,” Dr. Schneider said. “People of color are overrepresented in neighborhoods with lack of access to green space and live further from safe green space.”
The COVID pandemic has heightened awareness that racism is a public health threat. Prior to the pandemic, local officials viewed parks and recreation spending as discretionary. Those calling for green space have never been louder, more diverse, or more perfectly positioned, Dr. Schneider said.
“Collective planning and policy can amplify those voices for green spaces as critical infrastructure and contributors to health and well-being,” she said. “We can’t wait another decade, we can’t wait another year, we really can’t wait another day to address the inequities in systemic health.”
The severity of COVID’s impact on black communities was a predictable result of structural and social reality. Cities cannot be fixed, Dr. Schneider said, if we don’t insist on dismantling racial, economic, and environmental inequities.
“Green space is an essential part of healthy, resilient, and vibrant communities,” she said. “Given the evidence of the health benefits of green space, withholding access to them for a third of U.S. residents is simply unacceptable and unjust.”
I love doing projects, so I spent a lot of time doing those. I was able to even refurbish a 100-year-old round dining room table, and I love how it turned out. I also enjoyed having lazy days with my husband and my dog when I wasn’t working on coursework.
What inspired you to pursue a MHA degree?
I started my undergraduate college career thinking I wanted to be a doctor, then I switched to being a nurse. I even took a CNA course through Parkland College, and I realized that the clinical side of healthcare was just not for me. I knew I wanted to have a career in healthcare, so that led me to getting my Bachelors in Community Health. Once I was done with that, I knew I wanted to have the ability to hold a leadership position in healthcare someday, which ultimately led me to purse a MHA degree.
Why did you choose Illinois for your MHA?
My choice to go to Illinois for college started when I was super young. That’s why I pursued my undergraduate degree at Illinois, and I loved the university so much that I decided to stay two more years to complete the MHA program.
What advice do you have for current students OR prospective students?
Enjoy your time as a student and take advantage of all of the opportunities the program and university have to offer. I know all too well what it’s like to feel like you’re behind, like you should be onto the next step of life already. BUT once your time as a student is over, you have to enter the scary world of adulting so take full advantage of the life as a student while you can as everything will work itself out, and you’ll be grateful for all of the experiences you received during your time at Illinois.
