REU Site: Social Network Analysis for Solving Minority Health Disparities

该项目由本科生研究经验（REU）站点计划支持，该计划是nsf范围内的计划，尽管每个理事会管理自己的REU站点竞赛。本项目支持大学生积极参与科研，引导大学生从事科学研究，鼓励大学生继续投身国家的科学研究和发展事业。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设计的研究项目。REU计划是NSF发展多样化、具有国际竞争力和全球参与的科学和工程劳动力的目标的主要贡献者。社会，行为和经济（SBE）科学理事会授予内布拉斯加大学这个REU网站拨款？林肯（UNL）为了激发参与者对社会网络分析（SNA）和行为健康的兴趣，重点关注少数民族健康差异。参与者接受项目PI在SNA方面的广泛方法培训，同时接触一系列研究课题和潜在的科学研究领域。他们与少数族裔健康差异倡议（MHDI）一起，加入了一个由来自州和地方机构的跨学科研究人员和社区卫生工作者组成的协作社区，解决内布拉斯加州少数族裔健康差异问题。将现有的REU扩展到少数群体健康差异，对于在夏季为学生提供多样化的体验，并通过社会网络分析等创新方法和基于社区的参与式研究（CBPR）等文化敏感范式，扩大对少数群体健康研究感兴趣的学生人数至关重要。研究在8个参与实验室内进行，这些实验室位于联合国两个校区的几个部门。夏季项目包括专业培训，提供个人职业指导和群组活动。以联利部队现有的招聘策略为基础？在罗纳德·e·麦克奈尔（Ronald E. McNair）的研究生成就项目中，该项目从广泛的背景、家庭院校、年龄、性别和种族中招募初级和高级本科生，重点是中西部地区代表性不足的少数民族和女学生。鼓励参与者从事行为健康科学方面的职业，并有机会在由少数群体健康差距倡议共同主办的年度内布拉斯加州少数群体健康峰会上向其他REU参与者和更广泛的健康从业人员展示他们的研究成果。自20世纪90年代末以来，对社会网络和健康的综合关注对健康研究和社会科学都产生了重大影响。SNA已成为社会学家的关键分析镜头，在过去二十年中推动关系社会学快速发展。它也作为一套通用的工具和方法出现，这些工具和方法跨越了一系列科学。毫不夸张地说，从事网络研究的研究人员可以自由地选择从计算机安全、病毒学、灵长类动物学和万维网研究等遥远领域发展起来的技术和措施。社会科学和社会网络分析在这样一个跨学科领域有很大的贡献。SNA是最古老和最严格的网络分析方法之一，并且具有丰富的经验基础。虽然物理学家将人类网络建模为更基本的物理物质的隐喻，但SNA研究人员传统上试图从人类的实际互动中提取他们的抽象。这种方法影响公共卫生和相关领域的潜力已经很明显。现在需要的是减少借用，并在新的相互交织的领域培养更多的研究人员。在这个项目中，REU参与者学习网络SNA的基本方法，然后在UNL和内布拉斯加州大学医学中心（UNMC）的一系列赞助NIH和nsf资助的研究项目中使用这些技能，重点关注少数民族的健康和健康差异。网络培训将在为期两周的密集网络科学实习中进行，随后参加为期8周的mhdi附属研究项目。这些项目的共同重点是与少数群体健康和扩大少数群体健康参与有关的基本问题，目前由一系列联邦和州来源提供资金。该项目由EPSCoR项目共同资助。

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.