RAPID: Digital Social Connection and Immune Biology among Emerging Adults: Assessing Novel Sources of Health Resilience During the COVID-19 Pandemic

我们研究的主要目的是了解在当前的大流行危机期间，通过互联网和其他电子手段的社会联系是否，何时以及如何促进而不是损害免疫生物学水平的健康。社会关系对总体健康和免疫生物学的积极影响是有据可查的。然而，在当前的卫生危机期间，数字互动必然取代传统的人与人接触，特别是在封锁等关键时期，这对一些人的健康有潜在的负面影响，但对另一些人有补偿性的、因此是积极的影响。研究人员还不清楚，面对面社交互动的减少是否会被数字社交联系的增加所有益地弥补，从而维持健康和免疫生物学。在本研究中，我们预期新兴成人（美国本科生）在数字社会环境中发现的社会支持可能会帮助他们通过数字代理社会互动来维持他们的免疫功能，同时满足现实世界的社会心理需求，从而影响他们的健康，因为社会接触和免疫生物学之间存在联系。这里的主要贡献是：a)为通过数字手段建立的社会联系是否会影响免疫生物学提供更好的证据；b)分析数字互动的内容和过程，以确定哪些关系策略是有益的/健康的，哪些是适得其反的/功能失调的。验证这些项目的中心假设将有助于发展关于如何在大流行事件和其他灾害期间保持健康的新观点和实际干预措施。学生作为研究合作者的参与有助于他们的教育发展。研究小组还将开发记录这项研究的更大的公共教育材料。总体而言，该项目是综合人类学研究、教育和公众参与的典范。该研究将心理人类学方法与基因组学研究结合起来，研究社会经验如何影响基因表达，以获得关于健康恢复力的新的生物文化视角。这项研究从人类学家所谓的文化和谐的理论理解中汲取灵感，并为之做出了贡献——粗略地说，个人在多大程度上符合（或不符合）有关适当行为和互动的社会共享规范，这与健康有充分的联系。离线/在线文化一致性将通过在线问卷进行评估，研究团队还将收集其他相关的社会互动、人口统计和健康数据（如数字技术使用、心理健康和呼吸道症状）。通过血液样本，研究小组将评估受访者的免疫生物学（抗病毒和炎症活性），分析样本，以了解与免疫功能相关的基因表达是否以及如何变化。该研究将长期观察参与者，以记录与线下/在线社会规范一致的变化如何与免疫生物学/ COVID症状的变化相关。由于行为和生物学的迅速变化，确立了个人行为和健康的后续长期轨迹，因此，在疫情高峰期及其最初席卷人口的时候，需要对这些相互关联的社会支持和保健过程进行审查。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The primary aim of our study is to understand whether, when, and how social connections through the internet and other electronic means promote rather than compromise health at the level of immune biology during the current pandemic crisis. The positive impacts of social connections on general health and immune biology are well-documented. However, during the current health crisis, digital interactions necessarily substitute for conventional, person-to-person contacts, especially during key periods such as lockdowns, with potential negative health impacts for some, but with compensatory and thus positive impacts for others. Researchers do not yet understand whether these decreases in face-to-face social interactions might be beneficially compensated by increases in digital social connections, and so sustain health and immune biology. In this study, we anticipate that the social support emerging adults (U.S. undergraduate students) find in digital social contexts might help them maintain their immune function via digital proxy social interactions that nevertheless satisfy real-world psychosocial needs, and thereby influence their health because of the link between social contact and immune biology. The primary contributions here are to a) provide better evidence for whether social connectedness through digital means affects immune biology; and b) analyze the content and process of digital interaction to determine which relational strategies are helpful/ healthy and which are counterproductive/ dysfunctional. Validating this projects’ central hypotheses will lead to the development of new perspectives and practical interventions on how to maintain health during pandemic events and other disasters. The involvement of students as research collaborators contributes to their educational development. The research team will also develop for the larger public educational materials documenting this study. Overall, the project serves as a model of integrated anthropological research, education, and public engagement.The research combines psychological anthropological approaches with genomics studies of how social experience affect gene expression to gain new biocultural perspectives on health resilience. The study draws from and contributes to theoretical understandings of what anthropologists call cultural consonance—roughly, the extent to which individuals are congruent (or not) with socially shared norms regarding proper behavior and interaction, which has well-documented health linkages. Offline/ online cultural consonance will be assessed via online questionnaires, where the research team will also collect other relevant social interaction, demographic, and health data (such as digital technology use, mental health, and respiratory symptoms). Via blood samples, the research team will assess respondents’ immune biology (antiviral and inflammation activity), analyzing the samples to see if and how gene expression related to immune function changes. The study will observe participants over time to document how changes in consonance with offline/ online social norms are associated with changes in immune biology/ COVID symptoms. These linked social support and health processes need to be examined now at the peak of the epidemic and its initial sweep through the population, as behaviors and biology change rapidly in ways that establish subsequent long-term trajectories of individual behavior and health.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.