Ameliorating Social Isolation in Populations Facing Health Disparities: Identifying Social Structural and Person-level Factors that Impede or Facilitate Health-related Social Behavior Change

项目摘要/摘要 社会孤立及其主观上的孤独--已被公认为身体和精神状况不佳的危险因素 心理健康--在美国一直在以惊人的速度增长，尤其是在年轻人中。机械论 了解如何最好地建立社会联系以改善社会孤立是迫切需要的 将生活轨迹转向健康和幸福。在创造这种基础知识的过程中， 面临更高的疾病负担-黑人/非裔美国年轻人，拉丁裔/西班牙裔年轻人，以及那些 较少的社会经济特权--值得特别关注，因为这些高危人群中的人经常面临 发起社会互动方面的独特挑战，包括歧视和经济不平等。宽阔的， 这项工作的总体目标是对社会联系进行基础实验研究，以测试 健康通信消息是否、如何、在哪里以及针对谁可以激励面对面的互动 减少年轻人的社交孤立和孤独感。我们的多学科团队汇集了以下领域的专业知识 社会心理学、情感科学、传播学和健康差距，并将开展为期6周的 随机对照试验-Keep Social RCT-使用我们的创新和生态有效的模拟社会 媒体平台和一套严格重复测量社交行为、孤独和其他健康状况的指标-- 相关结果。这项研究计划旨在满足三个具体目标。具体的目标1是 优化有关社交网络对年轻人(18-29岁)价值的健康信息 面临更高疾病负担的人群，然后进行Keep Social RCT以建立丰富的经验性 站台。这一目标将使用以人为中心的过程来设计健康沟通信息，以 包括同伴形象和故事，用于对500名高危年轻人进行在线实验。收到的消息 在这项在线实验中，鼓励面对面互动的最高评级将被选为Keep 社会RCT，这是安慰剂对照，重复六次以上的行为、调查和内隐评估 几周。具体目标2是分析理论驱动的机制，通过这些机制进行健康沟通 Keep Social RCT中的信息可能会减少年轻人的社会孤立感和孤独感 干预目标。这一目标将通过纵向统计建模来实现，以测试是否以及如何 实验性健康交流信息改善了社会连通性。具体目标3是扩展 Keep Social RCT的数据分析以确定减少的社会结构和个人层面的主持人 社会孤立和孤独，以确定在哪里以及对谁的影响最大。这一目标将得到实现 高级统计建模，以阐明我们的健康通信消息在什么情况下 最有效地改善面临更高疾病负担的年轻人的社会孤立和孤独。 总而言之，这项研究将提供一个框架，以确定干预目标，以指导后续 为减少美国各地日益扩大的健康差距而开展的翻译工作。

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT Social isolation and its subjective counterpart loneliness—well established as risk factors for poor physical and mental health—have been rising at alarming rates in the US, especially among young adults. Mechanistic understanding of how best to build social connectedness to ameliorate social isolation is sorely needed to redirect life trajectories toward health and well-being. In creating this foundational knowledge, populations who face higher disease burden—Black/African American young adults, Latino/Hispanic young adults, and those with less socioeconomic privilege—merit special focus because persons in these at-risk populations often face unique challenges in initiating social interactions, including discrimination and economic inequality. The broad, overarching objective of this work is to conduct basic experimental research on social connectedness to test whether, how, where, and for whom health communication messages can motivate in-person interactions to reduce young adults’ social isolation and loneliness. Our multi-disciplinary team brings together expertise in social psychology, emotion science, communication science, and health disparities and will carry out a 6-week randomized controlled trial—the Keep Social RCT—using our innovative and ecologically valid simulated social media platform and a suite of rigorous repeated measures of social behavior, loneliness, and other health- relevant outcomes. This program of research is designed to meet three specific aims. SPECIFIC AIM 1 is to optimize health messages about the value of social connectedness for young adults (ages 18-29) from populations who face higher disease burden and then conduct the Keep Social RCT to build a rich empirical platform. This aim will be met using a human-centered process to design health communication messages that include peer imagery and stories for an online experiment with 500 at-risk young adults. Messages that receive highest ratings for encouraging in-person interactions in this online experiment will be selected for the Keep Social RCT, which is placebo controlled with behavioral, survey, and implicit assessments repeated over six weeks. SPECIFIC AIM 2 is to analyze theory-driven mechanisms through which health communication messages in the Keep Social RCT may reduce young adults’ social isolation and loneliness to identify intervention targets. This aim will be met with longitudinal statistical modeling to test whether and how the experimental health communication messages improve social connectedness. SPECIFIC AIM 3 is to extend data analyses of the Keep Social RCT to identify social structural and person-level moderators of reduced social isolation and loneliness to identify where and for whom effects are largest. This aim will be met with advanced statistical modeling to illuminate the conditions under which our health communication messages most effectively ameliorate social isolation and loneliness in young adults who face higher burden of disease. Taken together, this research will provide a framework to identify intervention targets to guide subsequent translational work undertaken to reduce disparities in health that have been growing larger across the US.