Topic Selection for the Wonder Track (2025-26)
- Laila Al Afnan
- May 1, 2025
- 3 min read
Updated: 8 hours ago
Goal
Decide on 3 topics for the 2025-26 Wonder Track Community Data Internship cohorts.
Method
Use five criteria to decide three topics relating to leading causes of death.
Background. The BroadStreet Wonder Track is a multi-month data internship focused on the leading causes of death. Teams utilize the database: CDC Wide-ranging ONline Data for Epidemiologic Research or "CDC WONDER."
In 2025 to 2026, BroadStreet hosted 3 cohorts a year (spring, summer, autumn) and the goal was to pick three different topics for 2025 and that would be repeated in 2026.
Criteria #1: Alignment with the top 10 leading causes of death in the U.S.
We aim to understand the burden of the leading causes of death in the U.S. and to help reduce mortality rates for these conditions. As reported by the National Center for Health Statistics, the top 10 leading causes of death in the country include heart disease, cancer, accidents (unintentional injuries), stroke (cerebrovascular diseases), chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis, chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, and suicide (National Center for Health Statistics, 2026).
Criteria #2: Alignment with Healthy People 2030 objectives
Healthy People 2030 objectives reflect high-priority public health issues and help guide individuals and organizations towards improving health and well-being over the next decade (Healthy People 2030, 2020). The top 10 leading causes of death were checked to ensure that topics aligned with Healthy People 2030 objectives.
We shortlisted the following topics from the list of top 10 causes of death in the U.S.: heart disease, cancer, accidents (unintentional injuries), stroke (cerebrovascular diseases), chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s disease, diabetes, nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis, chronic liver disease, and cirrhosis.
Criteria #3: Availability of data in CDC WONDER
To ensure our team had enough data to work with during the internship, we ran CDC WONDER queries for the shortlisted topics. We established a data availability threshold of 30% or less for unreliable or suppressed data
Based on this, we refined the shortlist of potential topics to include: heart disease, cancer, accidents (unintentional injuries), stroke (cerebrovascular diseases), chronic lower respiratory diseases, and diabetes. This criteria guaranteed a sufficient dataset throughout the internship and enabled interns to conduct meaningful analyses.
Criteria #4: Alignment with Awareness Months
Awareness months help educate the public and policymakers about various health conditions and may serve to empower patients with knowledge that may lead to earlier diagnoses. We checked to see if the start date of each internship cohort (i.e. February, June, and September) aligned with raising awareness for a specific health condition (Fiorillo, 2026). Awareness months were compared this to our shortlist of health topics. For example, in line with February being recognized as American Heart Month, we assigned heart disease as the topic for the February cohort.
Criteria #5: Alignment with community interests
We turned to the community at BroadStreet Institute to help us decide on a topic for the June cohort. By running a poll of active team members and leaders, we allowed our community to vote for a topic from the following list: accidents (unintentional injuries), stroke (cerebrovascular diseases), chronic lower respiratory diseases, and diabetes. Based on the poll results (n=15), we decided to focus on diabetes mellitus during the June cohort.
As cancer remains a leading cause of death in the U.S., we conducted a deeper review of the most common cancer types. We found lung and bronchus, colon and rectum, pancreas, and breast cancer to be the most common (National Cancer Institute, 2024). This allowed us to choose lung and bronchus cancer as the topic for the September cohort.
Overall, by following a structured, data-guided approach, we have selected cohort topics that are both timely and relevant, ensuring our teams can make meaningful contributions to public health.
View full decision tree: https://canva.link/8swodjp9yiue6ge
Author List:
References:
National Center for Health Statistics, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2026, February 5). Leading Causes of Death. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
Healthy People 2030. (2020). Browse Objectives by Topic - Healthy People 2030. Health.gov. https://odphp.health.gov/healthypeople/objectives-and-data/browse-objectives
Fiorillo, S. (2026, January). Health Awareness Months 2026. Clinical Advisor. https://www.clinicaladvisor.com/news/health-awareness-months/#jun
National Cancer Institute. (2024). Common Cancer Sites - Cancer Stat Facts. SEER. https://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/common.html
