Fighting the COVID-19 Pandemic with Data Science
MIDAS Funded Research Projects
COVIDSymptom Tracking App Helps Patients and Researchers
Diagnosis and Care
The app helps people keep a diary of their COVID symptoms. The collected information can be shared with an individual’s doctor and can help COVID research and overall reopening efforts.
Human Factors on Virus Spread – Qianying Lin
Disease Spread
MIDAS Fellow presented her COVID-19 research. Her team is among the first to publish using computational models to estimate the spread of the virus.
Estimating county-level age group contact rates from time use data. – Jacob Fisher & Yajuan Si
Impact on Society
Drs. Jacob Fisher and Yajuan Si (Institute for Social Research) are using survey data to generate estimates on how people of different age groups and in different parts of Michigan are in contact with each other in public places, schools, workplaces and homes. Their results will provide critical information to policymakers on how to minimize both the spread of infection and economic disruption.
Predicting COVID-19 Transmission – Jon Zelner
Disease Spread
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology, working with the Michigan DHHS to develop high-res maps of COVID-19 testing, incidence, & mortality. They aim to identify transmission clusters that can be targeted for intervention, both during the current outbreak and when social distancing measures are gradually lifted.
FromApplying the principles of data science to understand preventable inequities in care and support among COVID-19 cases in Michigan. – Nancy Fleischer
Medical Resources
Michigan COVID-19 Recovery Surveillance Study is a collaboration between U-M School of Public Health and the Michigan DHHS. The goal is to conduct public health surveillance of people who have had a COVID-19 diagnosis in Michigan. Topics include symptoms, health care seeking behavior, access to basic needs, and the impact of the pandemic on social engagement and mental health, with an emphasis on health disparities.
Students’ mobility patterns on campus and the implications for the recovery of campus activities post-pandemic. – Quan Nguyen, Chris Brooks, & Daniel Romero
Disease Spread
Quan Nguyen, Christopher Brooks and Daniel Romero (School of Information) lead their team to understand how students use campus spaces and their mobility patterns, using network analysis. Their research will identify which student groups and which campus spaces are most vulnerable for infection, which are vital information as universities are planning to reopen the campus.
Spatio-Temporal Processes with Active Decision Making Strategies For Addressing the COVID-19 Pandemic – Moulinath Banerjee & Ya’cov Ritov
Impact on Society
Moulinath Banerjee and Ya’acov Ritov, Professors of Statistics, are developing cutting-edge statistical models of the pandemic, including mobility patterns, testing capacity/pressure on the healthcare system, and active decision making strategies. Their model will help policymakers understand both the short and long-term impact of the pandemic on human health and the economy.
Studying the coronavirus spread in India- Bhramar Mukherjee
Disease Spread
Bhramar Mukherjee, Chair of Biostatistics, and team used the susceptible, infected, and removed (recoveries & deaths) (SIR) model to predict the impact of India’s lockdown.
Update: Important research paper
Accessing food in the face of coronavirus limitations- Robert Hampshire
Impact on Society
A team led by Prof. Robert Hampshire from the Ford School of Public Policy will provide data and policy analysis to two of Detroit’s pilot programs.
Validating a Widely Implemented Deterioration Index Model Among Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients
Diagnosis and Care
MIDAS affiliated faculty and colleagues validate the Epic Deterioration Index (EDI), a predictive model implemented in over 100 U.S. hospitals that has been recently promoted for use in COVID-19 patients.
MIDAS Faculty Projects
Calculating the risk of delaying cancer care during the pandemic- Matthew Schipper
Diagnosis and Care
Matthew Schipper and team developed an App to compare the risk of postponing cancer treatment versus undergoing surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation during the pandemic.
Data-driven Diagnostic and Surveillance Platform- MCIRCC
Diagnosis and Care
The Center for Integrative Research in Critical Care (MCIRCC) is developing an early intervention tool to help COVID-19 patients.
Effectiveness of Social Distancing – Peter Song
Disease Spread
Q&A with Peter Song, Professor of Biostatistics, on “Social Distancing: Data Models for a Model Response to an Outbreak”.
New app analyzes how social distancing affects biological clocks- Danny Forger
Impact on Society
The app created by Danny Forger and team allows users to understand how their own body clocks have been impacted by social distancing and provides researchers with anonymized data to study the impact of disrupted circadian rhythms on a person’s health.
Predicting COVID-19 patient progression and outcome – Zhenke Wu
Diagnosis and Care
Zhenke Wu and team develop predictive models of disease progression of COVID-19 patients with severe and mild symptoms.
Maximizing COVID-safe behavior- Mingyan Liu
Disease Spread
Maximizing COVID-safe behavior is a new goal of a multiscale game theory project funded with $6.5 million from the Department of Defense.
Tracking Hospital Resources – Mike Cafarella
Medical Resources
Mike Cafarella from EECS and team are producing the unified medical institution and unified government office auxiliary databases to inform urgent action as well as to answer novel and pressing questions.
Information and misinformation sharing on Twitter- Ceren Budak
Impact on Society
Ceren Budak and team take a first look at sharing COVID-19 information and misinformation on social media.
COVID-19 Antibody Test- Xudong (Sherman) Fan
Diagnosis and Care
Optofluidic Bioassay, co-founded by Xudong Fan, professor of biomedical engineering, is developing a device for COVID-19 antibody testing.
Informing an approach to India’s recovery- Veera Baladandayuthapani
Disease Spread
Veera Baladandayuthapani and team create a visualization tool for obtaining state-level projections for COVID-19 in India.
How Big Data Could Optimize COVID-19 Testing- Siqian Shen
Medical Resources
Siqian Shen, with support from Microsoft’s AI for Health program, is designing a cloud-based system that will analyze data to better organize the logistics of testing.
Natural Language Processing to Understand Changes in Mental Health- Rada Mihalcea
Impact on Society
Rada Mihalcea and team are developing NLP methods to understand the changes in mental health associated with the outbreak, and whether certain people are more susceptible to be affected by these changes.
Michigan COVID-19 Utilization and Risk Evaluation System (M-CURES)- Jenna Wiens
Diagnosis and Care
A team led by Prof. Jenna Wiens, are collaborating with researchers in IHPI and Michigan Medicine to guide clinical and operational work.
Modeling COVID-19 as a Complex System – Marisa Eisenberg
Disease Spread
Marisa Eisenberg, Associate Professor of Complex Systems, Epidemiology, and Math, is collaborating with researchers in IHPI and Michigan Medicine to guide clinical and operational work.
COVID-19 Changes in Risk Perception
Impact on Society
Shu-Fang Shih and team received a grant from the National Science Foundation to study how behaviors and acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine change over time.
Fighting hunger- Jack Griffin
Guidelines and Tools
The usage of U-M alumus, Jack Griffin’s, FoodFinder app, has soared as the number of people facing food insecurity rises during the pandemic.
Resources and Guidelines
Ensuring COVID-19 Research Quality – ICPSR
Guidelines and Tools
The Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR) released “Best Practices for Measuring the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Impact of Epidemics” for data scientists.
Data Analysis Examples around COVID-19 – Richard Gonzalez
Guidelines and Tools
Richard Gonzalez, professor of psychology and statistics, illustrates statistical analyses and data visualization with COVID-19 data.
COVID19 Working Group – Research Data Alliance Guidelines
Guidelines and Tools
Guidelines on data sharing and re-use for COVID-19 researchers to maximize efficiency
Exploring the 3D structure of the coronavirus- SOCR
Guidelines and Tools
The Statistics Online Computational Resource (SOCR) Web-based BrainViewer displays multimodal brain data, atlases, and tractography models.
Commentaries
Detecting the Infection – Al Hero
Diagnosis and Care
Al Hero, Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, on predicting the transmission of infectious disease among people who are pre-symptomatic or asymptomatic and how it relates to COVID-19.
Monitoring Social Distancing- Kentaro Toyama and Joseph Eisenberg
Impact on Society
Kentaro Toyama and Joseph Eisenberg, speak about measures to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
Using epidemiological models to avoid a second peak- Joseph Eisenberg
Disease Spread
Joseph Eisenberg describes how epidemiological models provide insights to guide state and federal strategies and policymaking to control transmission.
Impact on Consumers- Aradhna Krishna
Impact on Society
Aradhna Krishna, Professor of Marketing and pioneer in the field of sensory marketing discusses how COVID-19 is affecting consumer attitudes and shopping.
Impact on Social Behavior – Jason Corso
Disease Spread
Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and owner of Voxel51 developed the Physical Distancing Index (PDI) to measure the impact of COVID-19 & subsequent calls for physical distancing on social behavior.
Public Policy Actions – Shobita Parthasarathy
Impact on Society
Shobita Parthasarathy, director of the Ford School of Public Policy’s Science, Technology, and Public Policy program, is studying the different ways several countries grapple with the COVID-19.
Medical Supply Chain – Mark Daskin & Emily Tucker
Medical Resources
Mark Daskin, and Emily Tucker, PhD, from the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering discuss how COVID-19 will test the strength of the medical supply chain.
