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: 1757739
• 负责人: Arthur Andrews
• 金额: $ 21.59万
• 依托单位: University of Nebraska-Lincoln
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-04-15 至 2022-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1757739&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: REU; Site; Social; Network; Analysis

This project is funded from the Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Sites program in the SBE Directorate. It has both scientific and societal benefits, and integrates research and education. This site stimulates undergraduate students' 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 Research, Evaluation, and Analysis for Community Health (REACH) Lab and the Minority Health Disparities Initiative (MHDI), they join a collaborative community of transdisciplinary researchers tackling minority health disparities in Nebraska. The expansion the 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). The summer program includes training in professionalism and provides 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 undergraduates from a wide-range of backgrounds, home institutions, ages, genders, and ethnicities, with emphasis on under-represented minority students in the Midwest. Participants are encouraged to pursue careers in social and behavioral health sciences and have opportunities to present the results of their research to both other REU participants and to a wider audience of faculty and staff at the annual Summer Research Symposium that is hosted by Graduate Studies.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 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 a REACH/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.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

该项目由 SBE 理事会的本科生研究经验 (REU) 站点计划资助。它兼具科学效益和社会效益，集研究和教育于一体。该网站激发本科生对社交网络分析 (SNA) 和行为健康的兴趣，重点关注少数族裔的健康差异。参与者接受项目负责人提供的广泛的国民账户体系方法培训，同时接触一系列研究主题和潜在的科学研究领域。他们与社区健康研究、评估和分析 (REACH) 实验室以及少数族裔健康差异倡议 (MHDI) 合作，加入了一个由跨学科研究人员组成的合作社区，致力于解决内布拉斯加州的少数族裔健康差异问题。将现有的 REU 扩展到少数族裔健康差异对于在夏季为学生提供多样化的体验以及通过社交网络分析和文化敏感范式（例如基于社区的参与性研究 (CBPR)）等创新方法扩大对少数族裔健康研究感兴趣的学生数量至关重要。暑期课程包括专业培训，并提供个人职业指导和群体活动。该项目以内布拉斯加州大学罗纳德·E·麦克奈尔学士后成就计划采用的现有招聘策略为基础，招收来自不同背景、所在院校、年龄、性别和种族的本科生，重点关注中西部代表性不足的少数族裔学生。鼓励参与者从事社会和行为健康科学领域的职业，并有机会在研究生院主办的年度夏季研究研讨会上向其他 REU 参与者和更广泛的教职员工展示他们的研究成果。自 20 世纪 90 年代末以来，对社交网络和健康的共同关注对健康研究和社会科学产生了重大影响。 SNA 已成为社会学家的关键分析镜头，在过去二十年推动关系社会学快速发展。它还已成为一套跨领域科学的通用工具和方法。毫不夸张地说，研究网络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开发的技术和措施。社会科学和社交网络分析在这样一个跨学科领域可以做出很大贡献。 SNA 是最古老、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材料的隐喻，但 SNA 研究人员传统上试图从人类的实际互动中得出抽象。这种方法影响公共卫生和相关领域的潜力已经显而易见。现在需要的是减少借贷，并在新的相互交织的领域中培训更多的研究人员。在该计划中，REU 参与者学习网络 SNA 的基本方法，然后将这些技能运用到一系列由 NIH 和 NSF 资助的研究项目中，这些项目重点关注少数族裔的健康和健康差异。网络培训通过为期 2 周的强化网络科学实习进行，然后参加为期 8 周的 REACH/MHDI 附属研究项目。这些项目共同关注与少数族裔健康相关的基本问题和扩大少数族裔健康的参与，目前由一系列联邦和州来源资助。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。