for action
Dr. Maria Mayorga, Associate Professor of Industrial Engineering, is exploring a timely and intriguing “other possibility.” As she explains, “Significant research has been done in an attempt to explain the soaring numbers of obese and diabetic people in the country. Most of that research has revolved around two potential factors – genetics and environment. Still, we don’t have a concrete explanation for the pattern.”
What else may be defining the epidemic? Dr. Mayorga is assembling and analyzing a mountain of available data to determine if one influencer could be the impact of a mother’s health during pregnancy on the future health of her child and, big picture, on an underlying population. It is, of course, something doctors would like to know. Perhaps even more critical in today’s healthcare landscape, it is something healthcare policymakers need to know. Setting workable and beneficial policies – i.e. approved treatment interventions, revised Medicaid coverage, etc. – depends, simply put, on knowing what to expect in the years ahead.
Dr. Mayorga is leveraging her expertise in discrete event simulation modeling to read the crystal ball: “We are modeling the effects of the intrauterine environment on the prevalence of diabetes and obesity across subsequent generations. For instance, it is possible for a woman to develop gestational diabetes during pregnancy and expose the baby without ever being diagnosed herself – without anyone knowing. One of the causes could be linked to weight as measured by her Body Mass Index. That is among the many factors we are tracking by combing through data from population surveys, health records, hospital records and insurance records.”
Hospitals and other healthcare providers have long relied on industrial engineers to improve efficiencies and outcomes. What Dr. Mayorga is doing takes it deeper. Her work is helping solve one of the country’s top public health concerns. “As more people in the healthcare world come to know us and understand the kind of information we can provide, the more precise their requests,” she notes. “It is really a matter of putting two disciplines together for the benefit of many.”
On her current list of projects is the development of simulation models to predict health and economic outcomes associated with smoking cessation interventions; a patient’s choice of colorectal cancer screening modes; and the effect binge drinking during pregnancy may have on pre-term and low weight births. The goal in all cases is not to come up policies – not to find the best solutions – but to discover and verify data trends that can be used to guide policies.
Maria Mayorga has her Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. She has received a National Science Foundation CAREER Award and the College of Engineering and Science Faculty Mentoring Award. Her projects are funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Institutes of Health. A member of the Society of Hispanic Professional Engineers, she also does research pertaining to resource allocation in Emergency Medical Service (EMS) systems – looking particularly at the decision contexts of locating, dispatching and districting of EMS vehicles.
Ranking our industrial engineering graduate program holds among national public universities, per U.S. News & World Report, 2012.
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