REU Site: Social Disparities in Health, Health Behavior, and Access to Care

该项目得到了本科生研究经验(REU)站点计划的支持，该计划是一个NSF范围的计划，尽管每个理事会都管理着自己的REU站点竞赛。该计划支持本科生积极参与研究，努力向他们介绍科学研究，以鼓励他们继续参与国家的科学研究和开发事业。REU项目让学生以有意义的方式参与正在进行的研究项目或专门为此目的而设计的研究项目。REU计划是NSF培养多元化、具有国际竞争力和全球参与的科学和工程劳动力这一目标的主要贡献者。社会、行为和经济(SBE)科学局授予罗格斯大学新不伦瑞克分校REU现场赠款，旨在通过提高他们的人力、社会和文化资本，为本科生进行社会经济和行为健康差异研究做准备。根据社会经济地位、种族、性别和其他人口和文化因素减少健康方面的差距是《健康人2020》的主要目标，该目标用于确定国家卫生倡议的优先事项。该项目帮助实习生将他们的观点整合到跨学科的研究团队中，这样他们就可以帮助提高对社会经济和行为原因以及健康差异后果的知识。这个REU网站每年招收8名本科生，目标是来自第一代、低收入和历史上在研究职业生涯中代表性不足的种族/民族群体的学生。暑假期间，实习生接受社会科学研究方法、统计学、写作研讨会和关于健康差距的讲座的广泛培训，为与教师导师开展的个人研究项目奠定基础。实习生完成完整的演绎研究过程，并以研究论文、海报和演讲的形式展示他们的项目。在学年中，他们继续与导师合作，修改论文以提交给会议或期刊，并作为导师研究团队的成员参与其中。主任教授关于选择研究生项目、撰写研究生院申请论文和请求推荐信的建议研讨会。(1)该培训计划为本科生做好准备，通过提供他们对健康状况不佳社区的社会经济和文化特征的见解，填补在解决健康差距关键问题方面的关键利基。(2)该计划扩大和多样化了社会和行为科学研究劳动力的种族/民族、性别和社会经济构成，以更接近地反映美国总体人口的构成。(3)该计划通过促进在课堂、研讨会和他们导师的合作研究团队中讨论不同的观点，改善了社会科学和行为科学领域的所有学生和研究人员的学习。

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 Rutgers University New Brunswick which aims to prepare undergraduate students to conduct research on socioeconomic and behavioral disparities in health by enhancing their human, social, and cultural capital. Reducing disparities in health according to socioeconomic status, race, gender, and other demographic and cultural factors is a major objective of Healthy People 2020, which is used to set national priorities for health initiatives. The program prepares interns to integrate their perspectives into interdisciplinary research teams, so they can help advance knowledge about socioeconomic and behavioral causes and consequences of health disparities.This REU site recruits 8 undergraduate students per year targeting students from first-generation, low-income, and racial/ethnic groups that have historically been underrepresented in research careers. During the summer, interns receive extensive training in social science research methods, statistics, writing workshops, and lectures on health disparities to provide the foundation for individual research projects undertaken with faculty mentors. Interns complete the full deductive research process, and present their projects as research papers, posters, and speeches. During the academic year, they continue working with a mentor, revising their paper for submission to a conference or journal, and participating as a member of the mentor's research team. The Directors teach advising workshops on selecting graduate programs, writing graduate school application essays, and requesting letters of recommendation. (1) The training program prepares undergraduates to fill a crucial niche in addressing critical issues in health disparities by providing their insights into socioeconomic and cultural attributes of communities that disproportionately experience poor health. (2) The program expands and diversifies the racial/ethnic, gender, and socioeconomic composition of the social and behavioral science research workforce to more closely mirror the composition of the overall US population. (3) The program improves learning for all students and researchers in social and behavioral science fields by facilitating discussion of diverse points of view in classes, seminars, and in their mentors' collaborative research teams.