Elisabeth Dowling Root has a background in public health and geography and is a researcher in Ohio State’s Translational Data Analytics program. She said her focus on children’s health and wellness grew out of her status as a mom: “I am always looking for very simple answers to questions like, ‘Should I vaccinate my child and why?’ or ‘What do I need to feed my children early in life to make sure they can reach their potential when they’re older?’ We’re constantly asking ourselves these types of questions as parents, and I get frustrated. So if I can take that feeling I had and translate it into research that can help people who are in a similar situation, that’s the ideal in my mind.”

Part of Root’s work is based on quantifying socioeconomic factors that may play a role in determining how a child reacts to a medical intervention: “I think that’s the correct way of understanding child health. That’s where big data comes in. Because now we’re not talking about one child and measuring how he or she is doing over time. My data sets are often only 20,000 kids, which is not big data in and of itself. But it is 20,000 kids measured for five years continuously looking at 200, 300 or 400 variables that look at their situation in life. That blows it up big time.”

Root said that her research has revealed some more long-term public-health benefits to vaccinating children: “When you vaccinate, your children think better because they don’t get sick so much when they are little. Their labor force outcomes are better. They have a higher salary and that sets up not only them but the next generation to be more productive members of society. People don’t understand that vaccines are not about just making sure my kid doesn’t get sick. There are these real long-term global implications for development.”