Category: Community Health

How Veterans’ cannabis use can impact their care

May 23, 2023 | Ethan Simmons

While cannabis use is increasing for military Veterans, most aren’t getting it from medical sources

Photo by caption

By ETHAN SIMMONS

Twenty-one states have legalized recreational cannabis, and 88 percent of American adults are in favor of legalizing the use of marijuana for medical and recreational use, according to a recent Pew Research Center survey. Military Veterans aren’t an exception from this rising tide.

While the percentage of Veterans reporting past-year marijuana use has increased in the last decade, few of them obtain it from medical sources, a new study shows.

An analysis from Department of Kinesiology and Community Health Assistant Professor Rachel Hoopsick and co-author R. Andrew Yockey, assistant professor at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth School of Public Health, dove into national trends in marijuana use among U.S. Veterans from 2013 to 2019.

The researchers pulled data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health, which surveyed 16,350 veterans ages 18 and older on their experience with various substances.

Hoopsick’s and Yockey’s analysis revealed a sharp increase in marijuana use among Veterans in recent years. More than one in eight Veterans surveyed (12.9 percent) reported past-year marijuana use in 2019, up from 8.24 percent in 2013.

“Where it gets interesting is we did not see a similar increase in self-reported medical marijuana use among vets,” said Hoopsick, whose research focuses on substance use and mental health for people in high-stress occupations. “This is telling us that although marijuana use is increasing in Vets, it’s not medical marijuana, it’s recreational marijuana.”

In the U.S., 38 states have authorized the sale of medical marijuana, and 21 of them regulate cannabis for recreational use as well. But the drug remains federally illegal, classified as Schedule I by the Drug Enforcement Administration “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Therefore, Veterans Health Administration providers cannot prescribe or recommend patients marijuana, though they may discuss the drug in a general sense.

Many Veterans clearly use marijuana, often seeking it out for therapeutic purposes, Hoopsick said. Veterans show higher instances of physical and mental health conditions than the general population.

This disconnect presents two issues, Hoopsick said: VA health care providers might be missing a critical piece of health information during consultations with Veteran patients. And with less frequent medical prescriptions, some Veterans could be obtaining cannabis from unregulated sources with added safety risks.

“Veterans should discuss with their care providers how the addition of cannabinoids or any other medication to their routine may interact with or impact other medications or treatments they are receiving,” an official from the Veterans Health Administration wrote in an email.

Veterans will not be denied their VA benefits for using marijuana.

“I think that that is a fear among some Veterans that if they divulge that information that they’ll lose their benefits, but that’s not the case at all,” Hoopsick said.

“It’s important for their health care providers to have a full understanding of all the substances that they might be using and how that might affect their health and treatment plan.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Rachel Hoopsick, email hoopsick@illinois.edu.
 

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Geiger to assess effects of some chemicals on children’s sleep

Feb. 14, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Endocrine disrupting chemicals are found in many common household items, and our blood

PFAS are found in many common household items and found in our blood.

Multiple studies have shown that children who regularly get an adequate amount of sleep have improved attention, behavior, learning, memory, and overall mental and physical health. Not getting enough sleep can lead to high blood pressure, obesity and depression. An Illinois researcher wants to help mitigate those sleep issues. 

Kinesiology and Community Health assistant professor Sarah Geiger is planning to assess how the exposure to certain chemicals while in the womb affects child sleep later in life and can lead to poorer health outcomes. Geiger’s study is funded by an R03 grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institutes of Health (NIH) component dedicated to environmental health research. In the grant application, Geiger writes that “the potential for prenatal exposures to endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) to adversely impact children’s health is a growing public health issue.” As Geiger explains, perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are EDCs found in many common household items and found in our blood.

“They’re so pervasive in terms of products,” said Geiger, who investigates environmental pollutants and chronic disease risk factors, including sleep problems, among children. “Studies have shown them to be found in foods (and) they’re notorious for these non-stick surfaces, but that’s really just one of so many types of things they’re in. Plastic water bottles, plastic fast food containers. They’re even in biomedical devices and things like IV bags and makeup, all sorts of cosmetics, nail polish.”

Geiger said her study is looking at the pregnant mom’s concentrations of those chemicals in her blood, and then looking at outcomes in children.

“We’re measuring her levels as a proxy of what they’re being exposed to,” Geiger said. “The idea is that developmental exposure in the womb to those chemicals that their mother has been exposed to is somehow altering their development and manifesting later as sleep problems. What we’re really interested in is looking at the association between the two. Are moms with higher levels of these chemicals in their blood more likely to have children who have poorer sleep quality? And if so, then we can think about maybe what is the mechanism that is causing that to happen?”

Geiger added that the study is not only looking at how chemical exposure in the womb affects child sleep later on, but also how stress and depression and other factors during pregnancy can affect child’s sleep later on. The study is important, Geiger said, because sleep, or the lack of it, is a predictor for health. Lack of sleep for a child can lead them to be unfocused and unproductive. And a lack of sleep in childhood is predictive of sleep issues in adulthood, she said, adding that sleep problems in adulthood cost the U.S. billions of in health care.

Another reason this research is important is how long certain PFAS can stay in a person’s body.

“They are sometimes called forever chemicals; they have an extremely long half-life compared to other types of endocrine-disrupting chemicals,” Geiger said. “The half-life might be like five years. Let’s say you have a certain level of this one chemical in your blood, after five years, half of it would have been metabolized or excreted from your body. To give you a comparison, like BPA (bisphenol A), another common endocrine-disrupting chemical, the half life is more like five hours.”

As important as the research is, Geiger is realistic that studies like hers and others are not likely to force companies to limit their use of PFAS.

“These are extremely powerful market forces … I would like to think that all of the research combined on sleep and other things may apply some pressure, but—and I do think that the end goal is to try to remove or limit these types of chemicals if they are harmful—but that’s much easier said than done. It’s a pretty difficult task. 

Editor’s note:

To reach Sarah Geiger, email smurphy7@illinois.edu.
 

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Stretching their Reach: Robotic support for older individuals

Jan. 09, 2023 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The goal is to create a scalable, affordable, flexible Stretch Cognitive and Physical Assistant that can improve the quality of life for older adults with a range of cognitive and physical impairments

University of Illinois researcher Dr. Wendy Rogers is stretching her work with Stretch the Robot.

The Kinesiology and Community Health professor has received a Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant from the National Institute on Aging (National Institutes of Health), for approximately $2.5 million.

The research will be conducted between December 2022 and November 2024 and builds on a Phase I grant that Rogers and Dr. Aaron Edsinger, CEO of Hello Robot, received last year. Other Illinois collaborators on the new grant include Speech and Hearing Science Associate Professor Raksha Mudar and Harshal Mahajan, Assistant Director of Research for the McKechnie Family LIFE Home. Also part of the new team are ClarkLindsey, an independent, senior living community in Urbana, Ill.; Dr. Vy Nguyen, an occupational therapist at Hello Robot; and Dr. Charlie Kemp, director of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech and CTO of Hello Robot.

Phase I explored the use of Stretch, a research robot designed by Kemp & Edsinger, to support everyday activities through use of a lightweight telescoping arm mounted on a mobile base. That research identified home tasks for which support is needed; developed tools to enable Stretch to effectively perform these tasks; and designed an easy-to-use interface that older adults can use to control Stretch to carry out their desired tasks.

The Phase II grant will advance the capabilities of Stretch, in partnership with ClarkLindsey, focusing on physical and cognitive tasks. The aim is to determine how assistive robots can support the needs of older adults with cognitive impairment in addition to those with mobility impairment. The researchers plan to refine the remote control interface to be used by caregivers, develop autonomous activities for Stretch, and explore Stretch’s utility in a variety of home environments, including common rooms with multiple people. 

The goal is to create a scalable, affordable, flexible Stretch Cognitive and Physical Assistant that can improve the quality of life for older adults with a range of cognitive and physical impairments, the researchers say.

In addition to ClarkLindsey, research and testing for this grant will be conducted at the McKechnie Family LIFE Home on the University of Illinois campus.
 

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Nutrition has many meanings for MPH student Drake Materre

June 01, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

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?”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Geiger wants to address rural urban disparity

May 02, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

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?”

Editor’s note:

To reach Sarah Geiger, email smurphy7@illinois.edu.
 

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MS-HT’s first class finds quick employment

March 02, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Amrutha Kumaran

Besides being the first six graduates of the Master of Science in Health Technology (MS-HT) program in the College of Applied Health Sciences, the inaugural class had another thing to celebrate.

The six students, Marlene Robles Granda, Gabrielle Choo-Kang, Asif Huq, Tia King, Amrutha Kumaran and Neva Manalil, celebrated the completion of their degrees with a capstone presentation and award ceremony on Aug. 3, 2021. By the end of the year, they were all employed.

Robles Granda, for example, landed as a data scientist at OSF Healthcare. She credited the MS-HT program for helping “decide my career path.”

“Before the MS-HT, I worked as a software engineer to positively impact people’s lives either by automating manual processes to help people in their daily activities. After I graduated, I could achieve my goal to blend my previous skills and knowledge with the knowledge of health technology. Now, I know what factors influence people to use technology and how to design health tech according to the needs of people. My skills developed in the MSHT allowed me to get into the healthcare system.”

The College of Applied Health Sciences, in collaboration with Grainger College of Engineering, developed the interdisciplinary MS-HT aimed at training professionals in improving the quality of life, health, and independence for people of all ages and abilities to maintain health and wellness; to manage chronic conditions; and to recover from injury or medical treatment.

The students are trained in software application, hardware engineering, human factors, and user-centered design, among other things in a program led by renowned researcher Dr. Wendy Rogers and associate director Dr. Nicole Holtzclaw-Stone.

Another of the first graduates, Tia King, said she was drawn to the MS-HT program because it “seemed really customizable. I knew I loved healthcare but also loved the idea of designing things. It seemed like I would be able to do both of those things with this program. Also talking with (Holtzclaw-Stone) prior was extremely helpful. She set up a meeting right away and answered all my questions (and continued to do so throughout the program).”

King said the MS-HT program led to a diversion in her plan.

“I thought that I wanted to be a clinical psychologist prior to this program,” she said. “When I was accepted into the program, I wanted to look at athletes and wearable devices, given I had played sports my entire life. But through (Dr. Tim Hale’s) courses (Human Factors and Understanding Users), I knew the route that I wanted to take was (user interface and user experience).”

King said Hale’s courses “allowed me to find my career path.”

King, who landed at Curo Financial Technologies Corp. in Chicago as a product coordinator, said her new employer specifically mentioned MS-HT as a reason she was hired.

“The program was mentioned because I would bring a fresh perspective to the team, and how they view users given I was doing the FinTech field with a healthcare background,” King said. “My employer seemed interested in the length of the program and the skills I was able to learn.”

Robles Granda agreed.

“They haven’t told me directly about that, but every time they introduced me to a new peer, they say, ‘Marlene graduated from the new MS-HT program that UIUC offers.’ I strongly believe that MS-HT is the reason I was hired for this job.”

Dr. Jonathan Handler, a senior fellow on the OSF Healthcare Innovation team who is Robles Granda’s supervisor, said Robles Granda was absolutely correct.

“The MS-HT program was a key factor in hiring Marlene,” he said. “We would not have known of her availability and strong fit for our needs had we not had a relationship with the program and her professors who reached out and recommended her.”

Holtzclaw-Stone said the program is already showing growth, going from a class of six the first year to eight this year, with further growth planned for upcoming cohorts.

“We are so thrilled that our first cohort of graduates found jobs and that companies and organizations are recognizing the importance of an MS-HT degree, as well as the skills our students have acquired,” she said.

Handler said he would not hesitate to hire more MS-HT grads.

“Marlene has had an excellent start with us and we are thrilled to have her!,” he said. “We hope MS-HT graduates will consider joining us as new opportunities arise.”

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email naverett@illinois.edu.
 

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MS-HT’s Class of 2021: Tia King

March 11, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The first graduates of the Master of Science in Health Technology program in the College of Applied Health Sciences all landed jobs within four months. We spoke to some of them about why they picked MS-HT, how MS-HT helped them decide on their career, and what they most enjoyed about the program. This time we speak with Tia King.

Tia King is one of six MS-HT students who quickly landed employment after graduating

Q: What attracted you to the University of Illinois?

A: I The attraction started in undergrad. I transferred here for the start of my junior year and fell in love with the campus and faculty. I quickly got involved with club sports and activities so, Champaign-Urbana felt like home.

Q: Why did you pick the MS-HT program?

A: The program seemed really customizable. I knew I loved healthcare but also loved the idea of designing things. It seemed like I would be able to do both of those things with this program. Also talking with (Associate Director) Nicole (Holtzclaw-Stone) prior was extremely helpful. She set up a meeting right away and answered all my questions (and continued to do so throughout the program).

Q: Did the MS-HT program help you decide a career path?

A: It really did, I thought that I wanted to be a clinical psychologist prior to this program. When I was accepted into the program, I wanted to look at athletes and wearable devices, given I had played sports my entire life. But through (Dr. Tim Hale’s) courses (Human Factors and Understanding Users), I knew the route that I wanted to take was UI/UX.

Q: What did you learn that you immediately applied in your new job?

A: I almost immediately became the UX expert for our team, given that was my major focus during my time in the program. An example of some UX work I have done thus far is designing what the process should look like for customers with a prescreened offer.

Q: Did your new employer mention your MS-HT program as a reason you were hired?

A: Yes, for multiple reasons.The program was mentioned because I would bring a fresh perspective to the team, and how they view users given I was doing the FinTech field with a healthcare background (this is the case for someone else on my team too!). Something else my employer seemed interested in was the length of the program and the skills I was able to learn. And two other members on my team also attended UIUC, so maybe there is some bias there, ha!

Q: What was your favorite part of the MS-HT program?

A: LOVED Tim’s courses, because they allowed me to find my career path. I really enjoyed the team hardware project, where we built a hydraulic boot that could support patients. This was something that was completely out of my comfort zone, and difficult but I learned so much.

Q: What one thing did you take away from MS-HT that you feel was most important to your career?

A: Learning how to be collaborative. This is crucial for my role, given I have multiple meetings a day, where I have to share/update what I am doing and get feedback. This is similar to the structure of the courses we had with Tim, so this part of the job doesn’t feel overwhelming!

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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MS-HT’s Class of 2021: Marlene Robles Granda

Feb. 11, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

The first graduates of the Master of Science in Health Technology program in the College of Applied Health Sciences all landed jobs within four months. We spoke to some of them about why they picked MS-HT, how MS-HT helped them decide on their career, and what they most enjoyed about the program. This time we speak with Marlene Robles Granda.

Class of 2021: From left to right: Neva Manalil, Gabrielle Choo-Kang, Amrutha Kumaran, Marlene Robles Granda, Asif Huq, and Tia King.

Q: What attracted you to the University of Illinois?

A: One of the things I am passionate about is continuously learning. I was looking for an option that allows me to learn from knowledgeable professors in the field I was diving into, and networking with people with different backgrounds. At the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, I found a niche, because it has a high academic reputation and has one of the largest academic populations. I came to UIUC because I want to be in a place that could open the door to gain and reinforce my skills and where I could meet great people whom I could trust and call friends.

Q: Why did you pick the MS-HT program?

A: As a computer scientist, I love technology and how this can improve people’s lives, enhancing their independence, communication, and health. I am passionate to design and build solutions that have a broader social impact. I think we can use technology as a bridge to reduce gaps of people affected by social factors. I found the MS-HT a very exciting opportunity because it is an intensive one-year program with a curriculum very attractive to me. It conveys knowledge of user’s behaviors towards technology use, user-centered design, human factors, software, and hardware among others, focused on health. Those topics and the skills needed to succeed in this program train professionals that stand out among others. This is an advantage in the U.S. job market, which is very competitive.

Q: Did the MS-HT program help you decide a career path?

A: MS-HT helped me to decide my career path. It really did. Before the MS-HT, I worked as a software engineer to positively impact people’s lives either by automating manual processes to help people in their daily activities, introducing new tools for decision-making, or improving the quality of the computer services for communication purposes. After I graduated, I could achieve my goal to blend my previous skills and knowledge with the knowledge of health technology. Now, I know what factors influence people to use technology and how to design health tech according to the needs of people. My skills developed in the MS-HT allowed me to get into the healthcare system. Right now, I’m applying my knowledge and skills to my new position as a data scientist at OSF Healthcare, collaborating in the Digital Health Innovation team.

Q: What did you learn that you immediately applied in your new job?

A: What I learned from the MS-HT that I immediately applied in my new job (was) the health data analysis and technical communication skills. Right now I am a member of a multidisciplinary team focused on digital health innovation. I am working on research projects, ideating and designing solutions based on data-driven analysis to mitigate the challenges that patients face. Thus, communication is a key component of a team to achieve shared goals and transmit results to stakeholders. Also, problem-solving and management skills help me to do important contributions and be up-to-date in my activities as a member of my team.

Q: Did your new employer mention your MS-HT program as a reason you were hired?

A: They haven’t told me directly about that, but every time they introduced me to a new peer, they say, “Marlene graduated (from) the new master’s degree MS-HT that UIUC offers.” I strongly believe that MSHT is the reason I was hired for this job.

Q: What was your favorite part of the MS-HT program?

A: My favorite part of the MS-HT program was the capstone project experience. It helped me to improve my software development, data science, communication, organizational, problem-solving, and time-management skills. Furthermore, it allowed me to expand my professional network and work in a similar scenario as the industry is. Sharing with collaborators and facing challenges as in a real-world scenario, was fascinating to me. It gave me a boost in my professional career.

Q: What one thing did you take away from MS-HT that you feel was most important to your career?

A: The master’s degree opened my eyes to know how health technologies should be designed and created to satisfy users’ needs. It was through the MS-HT program that I realized how important it is to consider the users’ needs first for ideating and designing solutions. Also, I enjoyed all the activities throughout this awesome experience: the lectures, the assignments, the finals, the team projects, the course meetings, the capstone project. Everything I learned and experienced in my journey as a student of the MS-HT was immensely satisfying. Even the constraints that I faced helped me to be patient, resourceful, and develop strengths I didn’t experience before. I am grateful to have met awesome professors and fellow students who I trust and appreciate.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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Students show creativity in robot competition

Feb. 11, 2022 | Anna Flanagan

The Stretch robot, manufactured by Hello Robot

Students in the Grainger College of Engineering, Gies College of Business, and College of Applied Health Sciences emerged victorious in the Stretch Robot Pitch Competition sponsored by TechSAge in collaboration with Hello Robot and P&G. A collaboration between the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, TechSAge works to understand the needs of, and develop supportive technologies for, people aging with long-term vision, hearing, and mobility disabilities. TechSAge is funded by the National Institute on Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). Wendy Rogers, professor of kinesiology and community health and a co-director of TechSAge, said the research center has sponsored other, more broadly focused design competitions in the past.

“This year, we decided to focus on using Stretch, a robot with which we’ve been working in the McKechnie Family LIFE Home,” she said. “In a meeting with P&G, we learned that they’re very interested in robotics in the home to help people use their products, so we asked students to pitch an idea for Stretch that would help adults with vision or hearing disabilities to use P&G products.”

Stretch can be moved and manipulated with a game controller to sense, reach for, and grasp objects to support people in performing a wide range of tasks. It is manufactured by Hello Robot, a company founded by Charlie Kemp, professor of biomedical engineering and director of the Healthcare Robotics Lab at Georgia Tech, and Aaron Edsinger, former robotics director at Google.

Modifying the robot

Gies College of Business graduate student Ilalee Harrison James has been serving as a mentor to Grainger College of Engineering sophomore Maya Grant in the soft robotics lab of Holly Golecki, teaching professor of bioengineering, through a program Golecki started to introduce robotics to students from underrepresented groups. Harrison James attended the introductory session for the competition, where she learned about some of the robotics research that took place at Georgia Tech and led to the development of Stretch.

“When I was introduced to this opportunity, I got really excited. In the lab, I asked, ‘Who wants to work on this?’ Maya immediately said, ‘I do!’ It has given us a chance to work together as peers,” she said.

They began to brainstorm about challenges older adults face in the home and decided to tackle the issue of opening medication bottles. From her involvement with drone research, Grant had become familiar with jamming grippers, which consist of flexible containers of granular material, such as ground coffee. When air is added to the container, it becomes pliant enough to surround an object of any shape or size. When air is removed, the granular material compresses around the object, allowing for it to be held and moved.

“It’s really affordable for prototyping and it’s very effective,” Grant said. “The malleability of the grains can go around anything and the vacuum provides a very strong hold. It will be really good for picking up bottles.”

Added Harrison James, “When you consider Stretch’s gripping end effector, there’s so much that can be done with the two in combination.”

For their successful effort, Harrison James and Grant received $1000 and 20 hours of access to McKechnie LIFE Home facilities and resources to develop and test their design. Harshal Mahajan, assistant director of research in the McKechnie Family LIFE Home, will provide consulting support for the project. At present, they are assembling a team to address bot mechanical and software needs, and are brainstorming ways to further improve their design.

Honorable mentions

A student in the community health doctoral program and a team of students from electrical and computer engineering submitted proposals that earned honorable mentions in the competition.

Community health graduate student Megan Bayles, who is a member of Wendy Rogers’ Human Factors and Aging Laboratory, saw the competition as an opportunity to apply all that she’s been learning over the past three years. Rather than designing an end effector for Stretch, she designed a universal handle to modify items that Stretch might be employed to retrieve. “I wanted to make something that you could put on any tool—kitchen implements, toothbrushes-so that Stretch could pick it up and use it,” she said. An avid scuba diver, Bayles was inspired in her design by the many crustaceans she’s seen, sea cucumbers and starfishes, whose flexible mouths can fit around anything.

Speaking on behalf of the team from the Grainger College of Engineering, all of whom are members of Katie Driggs-Campbell’s Human-Centered Autonomy Lab, Shuijing Liu said her group decided to take on the challenge of using Stretch to help people with vision impairments to navigate indoor spaces. “Because of their limited perception, people with impaired vision may fail to see obstacles as they move around indoor spaces, or may become spatially disoriented and not know where they are within a space,” she said. Her group, which also includes electrical and computer engineering students Aamir Hasan, Kaiwen Hong, Eric Liang, Justin Lin, and Sean Yao, will use virtual home simulations to develop their concept, but plan to test their final design within the McKechnie Family LIFE Home.

Bayles and Liu’s group each received $500 for their honorable mention proposals.

 

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Community Health student encourages Illinois governor to continue education investment

Feb. 09, 2022 | Vince Lara-Cinisomo

Community Health senior urges Governor Pritzker to sustain education funding

Gov. Pritzker was on campus on Feb. 9 and Community Health student Hadiya Jagroop made a speech (Photo by Vince Lara-Cinisomo)

Community Health senior Hadiya Jagroop’s grandmother once told her, “Education is the key to success.”

But when the Guyana-born Jagroop moved to Oakwood, Ill., when she was 10, she knew “right away acquiring the dream was not going to be easy.”

Jagroop was one of two student speakers Wednesday at the Siebel Center for Design on the campus of the University of Illinois as Gov. J.B. Pritzker unveiled the education portion of his proposed statewide budget.

Jagroop, who plans to complete her degree in 2023 and then enroll in a master’s program in Public Health before enrolling in a dual MD/JD program, praised the state’s Monetary Award Program (MAP) Grant for putting her in position to accomplish her goals. The MAP Grant is a state-funded, need-based grant awarded by the Illinois Student Assistance Commission.

“The MAP Grant gave me a golden opportunity to acquire professional skills and build important relationships with faculty and students,” she said before encouraging Pritzker to make a “greater investment” in education to give “other students the opportunities I have had.”

Pritzker praised the University of Illinois for its “ninth consecutive year of record enrollment,” adding “that doesn’t happen everywhere, especially during a pandemic.”

Pritzker later added that the statewide indoor mask mandate in Illinois will be lifted by Feb. 28, except in schools.

Editor’s note:

To reach Vince Lara-Cinisomo, email vinlara@illinois.edu.
 

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