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NORC at the University Chicago

Melissa Heim Viox

Pronouns: She/Her

Senior Research Director
Health Sciences
Melissa works on survey data analysis and complex data collection projects with sensitive populations such as youth and sexual and gender minorities.

Melissa is a senior research director in the Health Sciences department at NORC at the University of Chicago. She has extensive experience in data collection management and data quality monitoring for in-person and web surveys, including for hard-to-reach populations such as teens and sexual and gender minorities. In addition, Melissa currently leads recruitment and implementation for AHRQ’s Safety Program for Telemedicine.

Melissa has managed multiple projects with adolescents for Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including TAPS, a dyad survey of adolescents and their parents, and CovEx, a survey about the impact of COVID-19 on youth 5-19. She also led work with the Division of Violence Prevention to modernize the Dating Matters program to be more inclusive of LGBTQ+ youth, and led the analytic program for START, a survey of adolescent men who have sex with men and transgender youth using social media for recruitment. Adding to her social media expertise, Melissa was project director for the Using Social Media for Recruitment in Cancer Prevention and Control Survey-Based Research Project, a series of surveys on cancer risk and preventive screening and testing using Facebook and Google for recruitment.

Melissa has co-authored papers and presentations on survey topics such as adolescent mental health, sexual orientation and gender development, physical measures data quality, and social media recruitment. Prior to NORC, she worked in school- and community-based health programs.

Project Contributions

Using Social Media to Recruit Cancer Research Participants

Exploring the feasibility of using social media to recruit participants for surveys about cancer risk

Client:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Survey of Today’s Adolescent Relationships and Transitions

Understanding sexual behavior of Black and Latino young men to prevent HIV

Client:

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Division of Adolescent and School Health

Developing Tools for Sexual and Gender Minority Youth

Analyzing survey data to inform HIV prevention materials that engage minority adolescents

Client:

Division of Adolescent and School Health at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Medicare Current Beneficiary Survey (MCBS)

The most comprehensive source of data on Medicare spending and the evolving needs of beneficiaries

Client:

Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services

AHRQ Safety Program for Telemedicine

Improving patient safety in the telemedicine environment

Client:

Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality

Publications

Research Library & Findings