Watch this video in EnglishThe Joint Research Unit 1252 SESSTIM Economic and Social Sciences of Health and Medical Information Processing (Inserm / IRD / Aix Marseille Université) was created on January 01st, 2012. The UMR SESSTIM is the result of a merger between the UMR SE4S (Economic and Social Sciences, Health Systems and Societies) and the LERTIM team (Medical Information Processing Teaching and Research Laboratory). Following the evaluations carried out by the HCERES and the Inserm, IRD and Aix Marseille University, assessment bodies, the UMR SESSTIM has been renewed to lead its new scientific project for the period 2018-2022.
The SESSTIM joint research unit brings together three teams in economic, human and social sciences (SHES) and public health, focusing on applications to cancer (CaLIPSO Reseach team), infectious diseases and addictions (SanteRCom Research team), and medical information processing (QuanTIM Research team). The members of these teams have knowledge, skills and expertise in the humanities and social sciences, community research, economics, epidemiology, psychosocial epidemiology, anthropology, sociology, geography, biostatistics, medical informatics, digital health and artificial intelligence.
The UMR SESSTIM strives to produce excellent, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research in the humanities, social sciences and public health that can lead to changes in the various fields of predictive, personalised, pre-emptive and participatory medicine. SESSTIM researchers develop, or are associated with, research projects that attempt to provide answers to current challenges facing society and its populations, and contribute to methodological developments and advances. In terms of pathologies of interest, our research focuses mainly on cancer and infectious and communicable diseases. Our questions focus on individual, population and contextual factors. Our work targets populations in France, or more broadly in the North, but also in the South, mainly in the Mediterranean basin and sub-Saharan Africa.
Some SESSTIM members are responsible for or contribute to various undergraduate and postgraduate courses. In particular, we are responsible for the distance-learning courses « Santé Publique Sociétés et Développements (SPSD) », « Expertise et Ingénierie des Systèmes d’Information en Santé (EISIS) », « Méthodes Quantitatives et Econométriques pour la Recherche en Santé (MQERS) » and « Artificial Intelligence for Public Health (AI4PH) » in the Master Santé Publique, for which we are jointly responsible and which is organised by the Faculty of Medical and Paramedical Sciences at Aix-Marseille University.The three EISIS, MQERS and SPSD pathways have been awarded the 'Academy of Excellence' label under the A*MIDEX Investissements d'Avenir call for projects (ANR-11-IDEX-0001-02; 2013 - 2016; 2016 - 2018).
