JOIN US IN ESSENTIAL, INTERDISCIPLINARY RESEARCH TO HELP ELIMINATE HEALTH DISPARITIES AMONG UNDERSERVED POPULATIONS MHDI SUMMER RESEARCH PROGRAM
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NSF REU Site: Social Network Analysis for Solving Minority Health Disparities
This project takes place under support of a Summer REU grant from the National Science Foundation for research in using novel methods to study health disparities with a focus on understanding social context. As part of that program, participating students will learn about the application of the relevant methods, such as social network analyses, community-engaged methodologies, and social context assessment tools. Based on these trainings, participants will develop hypotheses and learn how to design and conduct health disparities related research studies in order to employ these skills where possible in their summer research projects. Instruction will take place during the first week of the program and will be led by MHDI Core Faculty. Training will be used to enrich the students' experience during the subsequent 9 weeks. At the conclusion of the program, participants will present their research at the Summer Research Symposium poster session.
The 2021 MHDI Summer Research Program will be held remotely.
2021 MHDI REU Projects
Inequities in Chronic Disease, Mental Health, and Service Access
Immigration as a traumatic event
Disaster-focused mobile mental health
Socioenvironmental Influences on Health among Older Island Puerto Ricans
Executive Control and Adolescent Health Trajectories
The Interplay between Stress and Social Settings on Latinx Youth’s Behavioral Health
Prerequisites: Although not a requirement for involvement, please provide information on any research experience, proficiency with statistical software (e.g., SPSS), and familiarity with conducting literature reviews.Health and educational disparities experienced by marginalized youth represent a serious public health problem in the United States. Latinx youth are at risk for exposure to unique cultural stressors (e.g., discrimination, acculturative stress), in addition to economic hardship, poverty, school dropout, and work that requires little formal education, all of which further threaten health and well-being. There is a need to understand resilience-based mechanisms that may help promote positive health among Latinx youth, which are key for developing successful programming to reduce health disparities for ethnic minority populations. Supporting this research agenda are three data sets from externally funded projects: a) data from a currently funded Institute of Education sciences project focused on evaluating the efficacy of conjoint behavioral consultation for supporting Latinx elementary students’ social-behavioral health and academic achievement; b) an National Science Foundation funded study aiming to evaluate and promote elementary school children’s knowledge of and motivation to engage in engineering and to assess developmental, gender, and ethnic differences in these constructs among a diverse sample including Latinx populations; and c) the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health’s (Add Health) Mexican-origin subsample (~1600 youth).