Blood Lead Testing Surveillance
PLEASE NOTE: Although this posting may display a longer availability window on Handshake due to system requirements, applications for this internship must be submitted by June 12th.
Description: This project will work towards better understanding of any potential disparities of blood lead testing among children under age 6 in Kent County. The primary responsibility of the intern will be to manually pull and compile relevant demographic, social, and clinical variables, with an emphasis on race and ethnicity data completeness and quality, from electronic medical records into a dataset. Data will then be analyzed to identify any potential trends and findings will be summarized in a report. If time allows, the intern may also support a project evaluating confirmatory venous blood lead testing rates in Kent County. This work will be guided by the Kent County Lead Action Team, which is comprised of local and state partners with a focus on ending childhood lead poisoning.
Importance to Public Health: Childhood lead exposure remains a serious public health issue that can have lifelong impacts on health and development. By improving blood lead testing surveillance data, especially demographic and race/ethnicity information, the project will help KCHD better understand testing patterns, identify disparities, and improve follow-up care. For the student, the internship provides hands-on experience in public health surveillance, data management, and environmental health while contributing to work that can directly improve community health outcomes.
Project Deliverables:
-Finalized dataset of blood lead tests with race/ethnicity and any other relevant demographic, social, and clinical variables
-Report summarizing findings and trends
Minimum Qualifications:
Must be enrolled in a bachelor’s or master’s degree program
- Must be enrolled in a bachelor’s or master’s degree program
- Computer proficiency is required
- Experience with statistical analysis software (SPSS, Stata, Python, Excel) preferred