The PHIDL is dedicated to addressing health disparities and forecasting patient health outcomes with the desire to enhance overall patient well-being. To achieve this mission, the lab focuses on advancing health informatics and developing machine learning pipelines leveraging multi-modality data to identify patients at risk of adverse health events. Ongoing research involves substance use and mental health disorders, maternal and cardiovascular conditions, and COVID-19. We also seek to identify social determinant of health (SDoH) factors that are associated with undesirable health outcomes.

Dr. Cao has been collaborating with Dr. Lloyda B. Williamson, professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, on research of pregnant or postpartum women with concurrent substance use and mental health disorders. She and Dr. Bishnu Sarker, assistant professor of data science and computer science, are exploring machine learning methods for SDoH identification. Additionally, she has been working with HCA CHARGE consortium on COVID-19 studies.

A complete list of Dr. Cao’s publications is at Google Scholar and more information is available on her personal website.