REU Site: Social Network Analysis for Solving Minority Health Disparities

REU 网站：解决少数族裔健康差异的社交网络分析

• 批准号: 1461132
• 负责人: Kirk Dombrowski
• 金额: $ 35万
• 依托单位: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-02-15 至 2018-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1461132&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: REU; Site; Social; Network; Analysis

This project is supported under the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program, which is an NSF-wide program although each Directorate administers its own REU Site competition. This program supports active research participation by undergraduate students in an effort to introduce them to scientific research so as to encourage their continued engagement in the nation's scientific research and development enterprise. REU projects involve students in meaningful ways in ongoing research programs or in research projects designed especially for the purpose. The REU program is a major contributor to the NSF's goal of developing a diverse, internationally competitive, and globally-engaged science and engineering workforce. The Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) sciences Directorate awarded this REU Site grant to the University of Nebraska ? Lincoln (UNL) in order to stimulate participant interest in social network analysis (SNA) and behavioral health with a focus on minority health disparities. Participants undergo an extensive methodological training in SNA by the project PI while gaining exposure to a range of research topics and potential science research fields. In conjunction with the Minority Health Disparities Initiative (MHDI), they join a collaborative community of transdisciplinary researchers and community health workers from state and local agencies tackling minority health disparities in Nebraska. The expansion of existing REU to Minority Health Disparities is critical for providing students diverse experiences during the summer and expanding the number of students interested in minority health research through innovative methods like social network analysis and culturally sensitive paradigms, such as Community Based Participatory Research (CBPR). Research occurs within 8 participating laboratories that are housed in several departments across two UN campuses. The summer program includes training in professionalism and provide individual career mentoring and cohort activities. Building off of existing recruitment strategies employed by UNL?s Ronald E. McNair Postbaccalaureate Achievement Program, the project recruits junior- and senior-level undergraduates from a wide-range of backgrounds, home institutions, ages, gender, and ethnicity, with emphasis on under-represented minority and female students in the Midwest. Participants are encouraged to pursue careers in behavioral health sciences and have opportunities to present the results of their research to both other REU participants and to a wider audience of health practitioners at the annual Nebraska Minority Health Summit, co-sponsored by the Minority Health Disparities Initiative.Since the late 1990s, a combined focus on social networks and health has had a significant impact on both health research and social science. SNA has emerged as a key analytical lens for sociologists, pushing relational sociology forward at a rapid pace in the last two decades. It has also emerged as a set of general purpose tools and approaches which cross-cut a range of sciences. Without exaggeration, researchers working on networks choose freely among techniques and measures developed from fields as distant as computer security, virology, primatology, and studies of the world-wide-web. Social science, and social network analysis have much to contribute in such a transdiciplinary realm. SNA is among the oldest and most rigorous approaches to network analysis, and one with a rich empirical base. While physicists model human networks as metaphors of more basic physical material, SNA researchers have traditionally sought to draw their abstractions from the actual interaction of human beings. The potential of this approach to influence public health and related fields is already apparent. What is needed now is less borrowing, and more researchers trained across newly interwoven fields. In this program, REU participants learn basic approaches to network SNA and then employ these skills in a range of sponsoring NIH- and NSF-funded research projects at UNL and the University of Nebraska Medical Center (UNMC) that focus on minority health and health disparities. Network training takes place in a 2 week intensive network science practicum, followed by 8 weeks of participation in an MHDI-affiliated research project. These projects are united by a collective focus on fundamental questions related both to minority health and to broadening participation in minority health, and are currently funded by a range of federal and state sources. The project is co-funded by the EPSCoR program.

该项目得到了本科生（REU）网站计划的研究经验，该计划是NSF范围内的一个计划，尽管每个局均管理着自己的REU网站竞争。该计划支持本科生的积极研究参与，以便将他们介绍给科学研究，以鼓励他们继续参与美国的科学研究和发展企业。 REU项目以有意义的方式参与正在进行的研究计划或专门为目的设计的研究项目中。 REU计划是NSF的主要贡献者，即建立各种各样的国际竞争力和全球的科学和工程劳动力。社会，行为和经济（SBE）科学局授予了内布拉斯加州大学的REU网站授予？林肯（UNL）以刺激参与者对社交网络分析（SNA）和行为健康的兴趣，重点是少数族裔健康差异。参与者在PI项目中接受了SNA的广泛方法论培训，同时又获得了一系列研究主题和潜在的科学研究领域。结合少数族裔健康差异倡议（MHDI），他们加入了来自州和地方机构的跨学科研究人员和社区卫生工作者的合作社区，这些社区应对内布拉斯加州的少数党健康差异。 将现有REU扩大到少数民族健康差异对于在夏季提供各种经验，并通过社交网络分析和文化敏感的范式（例如基于社区的参与性研究（CBPR））提供对少数族裔健康研究感兴趣的学生的数量至关重要。研究发生在8个参与的实验室内，这些实验室位于两个联合国两个校园的几个部门。夏季计划包括专业培训，并提供个人职业指导和队列活动。 该项目是基于Unl？S Ronald E. McNair后的现有招聘策略，该项目从各种背景，家庭机构，年龄，性别和种族中招募了初级和高级高级本科生，并重点介绍了不足的次要辅助小学生和米森的学生。鼓励参与者从事行为健康科学领域的职业，并有机会向其他REU参与者以及在内布拉斯加年度的内布拉斯加少数民族健康峰会上向更多的卫生从业人员介绍其研究结果，由少数民族健康差异倡议共同赞助。1990年代后期，在1990年代后期，对社交网络和健康的综合焦点都对健康和社会进行了重大影响。 SNA已成为社会学家的关键分析镜头，在过去的二十年中，将关系社会学推向了迅速的速度。它也是一组通用工具和方法，这些工具和方法跨越了一系列科学。在没有夸张的情况下，从事网络工作的研究人员在从诸如计算机安全，病毒学，灵长类学和世界范围内研究的领域开发的技术和措施中自由选择。社会科学和社会网络分析在这样一个跨学科领域有很大贡献。 SNA是网络分析最古老，最严格的方法之一，并且具有丰富的经验基础。尽管物理学家将人类网络模仿为更基本物质物质的隐喻，但SNA研究人员传统上试图从人类的实际相互作用中汲取抽象。这种影响公共卫生和相关领域的方法的潜力已经显而易见。现在需要的是借贷的少量，更多的研究人员在新近交织的领域接受了培训。在该计划中，REU参与者学习了网络SNA的基本方法，然后在UNL和NEBRASKA大学医学中心（UNMC）的一系列赞助NIH和NSF资助的研究项目中使用这些技能，重点关注少数群体健康和健康差异。 网络培训是在为期2周的密集网络科学实践中进行的，随后参加了8周的MHDI-附属研究项目。这些项目集体关注与少数民族健康和扩大少数民族健康有关的基本问题的集体关注，目前由一系列联邦和州来源资助。该项目由EPSCOR计划共同资助。