Your Good Health is a Workforce Issue

Abstract

The high performance computing (HPC), cyberinfrastructure, and research and academic information technology communities are small - too small to fulfill current needs for such professionals in the US. Members of this community are also often under a lot of stress, and with that can come health problems. The senior author was diagnosed with Stage IV cancer in early 2017. In this paper, we share what we have learned about health management in general and dealing with cancer in particular, focusing on lessons that are portable to other members of the HPC, cyberinfrastructure, and research and academic information technology communities. We also make recommendations to the National Science Foundation regarding changes the NSF could make to reduce some of the stress this community feels on a day-in, day-out basis. The key point of this report is to provide information to members of the cyberinfrastructure community that they might not already have - and might not receive from their primary care physicians - that will help them live longer and healthier lives. While our own experiences are based on one of the author’s diagnosis of cancer, the information presented here should be of general value to all in terms of strategies for reducing and detecting long-term health risks. Our hope is that this information will help you be as healthy as possible until you reach retirement age and then healthy during a well-deserved and long period of retirement!