My time this summer at the Allen County Department of Health was a great opportunity to further my interest in healthcare. As an aspiring pre-med student, this internship was full of statistical analysis and research of Allen county’s infant mortality data that has helped me bolster my resume for my future medical school application. My summer consisted of going through vital records and compiling data into an excel file from birth data and death certificates so that we could analyze any trends in the Allen County area. This internship has further boosted my Excel capabilities and shown me the importance and relevance of infant mortality in my area. Not only that, but I am also now more knowledgeable of Infant health trends, determinations of their health, and causes of death.
This internship has given me a chance to come up with my own statistical analyses for the Infant mortality data to determine what information was more prevalent to the topic at hand. Furthermore, I learned how to display and present this information in easy to digest informatics for the entire health department to view. I also learned how to better collaborate and share ideas and concerns I had for the data as well as coming up with suggestions in our data analyses and how this could be beneficial public information for the Allen County area. My findings provided a groundwork for more possible in-depth studies for the future to see why certain demographics and zip codes are seeing more infant mortalities than others.
I’d like to thank the Wabash donors and sponsors who made this summer internship a possibility, Kristi Gephart and the vital records team for pulling up data that I needed in my statistical analyses, my fellow Wabash Co-Intern Carson Heister in assisting me in compiling the plethora of infant mortality data, and thank you to my supervisor, Jana Sanders, for allowing me this opportunity to work with you this summer and helping me piece together this study. This summer internship has already opened up more opportunities to me as I enter my junior year of college.
