Mario Martinez, the provost and vice president for Academic Affairs of Fort Lewis College in Durango, Colorado, is on a mission to address health care inequities, with a focus on Native Americans and Latinx populations (at Fort Lewis College, 39% of the college’s students are Indigenous and 15% Latinx).
Now, he’s partnering with several Colorado School of Public Health (ColoradoSPH) leaders via an NIH grant to explore how Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) might help underserved and vulnerable populations proactively address health issues in southern Colorado.
The grant, called AIM-AHEAD (Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning Consortium to Advance Health Equity and Researcher Diversity), is a partnership among Fort Lewis College, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE), a private data science company, and a local healthcare provider. Fort Lewis College professors and students also are key to building capacity in rural Colorado in AI/ML.
Spero Manson, PhD, ColoradoSPH distinguished professor and director of CAIANH (Center for American Indian and Alaska Native Health), helped bring together the partners. In this case, the leaders are Ned Calonge, MD, MPH, a ColoradoSPH associate dean and chief medical officer of the CDPHE; Sheana Bull, a retired ColoradoSPH professor and owner of Clinic Chat, LLC, an AI company; Southwest Health Systems; and Martinez.
The first phase of the work will use ML to access CDPHE’s health database to examine trends and models associated with health disparities among populations in rural Colorado. In the second phase, the results from the ML modeling will inform the creation of AI chatbots. The chatbots will be used in a pilot program for outreach and interaction with Native American and Latinx residents to suggest preventive action.
“At Fort Lewis College, we have a mission, and a responsibility, to address disparities in everything from education to healthcare,” Martinez said. “We have programs in Public Health, Engineering, Native American and Indigenous studies, and so much more, but partnering to address disparities in healthcare is a cross-cutting issue for the college and our region. Because of our role in higher education and the region, the grant is a perfect opportunity to do this work.”
The AIM-AHEAD program is funded by NIH to establish mutually beneficial, coordinated, and trusted partnerships to enhance the participation and representation of researchers and communities currently underrepresented in the development of AI/ML models. It aims to improve the capabilities of this emerging technology, beginning with electronic health records (EHRs) and extending to other diverse data to address health disparities and inequities.
CAIANH serves as a leader for the North and Midwest region of AIM-AHEAD, with the goal of extending the initiative into Native American and Alaska Native and Latinx communities. Specifically, CAIANH's purpose in this regard is to establish mutually beneficial and coordinated partnerships to increase the representation of Native American, Alaska Native, and Latinx researchers, educational institutions, health care organizations, and communities in the development of AI/ML models through participation in the AIM-AHEAD consortium. Additionally, CAIANH helps to build the capacity of Native and Latinx organizations to employ this emerging technology to address pressing health disparities. ColoradoSPH is committed to rural public health education. AIM-AHEAD is one example of our outreach and our desire to deliver leading edge methods throughout the region.
The Colorado School of Public Health is the first and only accredited school of public health in the Rocky Mountain Region, attracting top-tier faculty and students from across the country and providing a vital contribution towards ensuring our region’s health and well-being. Collaboratively formed in 2008 by the University of Colorado, Colorado State University, and the University of Northern Colorado, the Colorado School of Public Health provides training, innovative research, and community service to actively address public health issues, including chronic disease, access to health care, environmental threats, emerging infectious diseases, and costly injuries. For more information, visit https://coloradosph.cuanschutz.edu