CSDE Affiliates Clara Berridge, Karen Fredriksen-Goldsen, and CSDE Trainee Natalie Turner recently published research in Innovation in Aging entitled “Preliminary efficacy of Let’s Talk Tech: Technology use planning for dementia care dyads.” This pilot study of a self administered intervention called “Let’s Talk Tech” presents preliminary efficacy findings of this intervention designed to educate and facilitate dyadic communication about a range of technologies used in dementia care and to document the preferences of the person living with dementia.

External Affiliates David Swanson and Arni Rao and their co-authors have one of the 11 papers accepted for the “All UC Demography Conference,” in UC Irvine. Their paper “The relative risk of dying from COVID-19 among those infected reveals a disturbing portrait of both COVID-19 mortality and non-COVID-19 mortality in the USA” is sure to be a hit at the conference and we congratulate them for their acceptance!

In her most recent article featured in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, “Work-related factors associated with health and wellbeing of early care and education workers“, CSDE Affiliate Jennifer Otten surveyed Early Care and Education workers finding nearly half of respondents reported chronic health conditions. Many of the findings in the paper indicate the need for further attention to workforce health.

CSDE External Affiliate Arni Rao and co-authors have recently published work entitled “Markov Chain Models for Cardiac Rhythm Dynamics in Patients Undergoing Catheter Ablation of Atrial Fibrillation (AF)” in Bulletin of Mathematical Biology. Dr. Rao and colleagues develop a Markov Chain modeling system to examine the impact of catheter ablation of AF upon the dynamics of a patient’s AF status and their potential return to sinus rhythm.

The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), with other NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs), intends to promote a new initiative by publishing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to accelerate behavioral and social science through ontology development and use. Applications will be encouraged to develop new or expand existing ontologies for behavioral or social science research (BSSR). Applicants will be expected to form multi-disciplinary teams including subject matter experts in one or more BSSR fields, as well as experts in semantic knowledge structures. Proposals will be expected to focus on health-relevant terminology related to constructs, measures, and/or interventions. Funded projects and investigator teams will participate in a collaborative research network.

The over-arching intent of this solicitation is to: (1) enrich and expand the research community in CCH to include new researchers from multiple disciplines, both in the US and in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) globally; and (2) conduct research that will create new knowledge to reduce or mitigate health threats attributable to climate change across the lifespan and build health resilience or develop adaptation mechanisms for individuals, communities, and nations around the world, especially among those at increased risk from, or disproportionately affected by, the impacts of climate change. Awardees are expected to seek competing support to continue promising leads from the research supported through the supplement. This supplement opportunity is part of a larger NIH CCH initiative that seeks to build a global community of practice that will work towards trans-disciplinary solutions-driven science to address the serious impacts of climate change on health.

Join us for a talk by Maria-Elena Young (University of California, Merced) about “Immigrant Policy Exclusions and the Health of Latinx and Asian Immigrants in California.” This talk will present findings from the Research on Immigrant Health and State Policy (RIGHTS) Study which sought to assess the health impact of Latinx and Asian immigrants’ direct encounters with exclusionary immigrant policies. Through a novel, population-based survey and latent class analysis, Young shows the patterns of policy exclusions experienced across within sample of Latinx and Asian immigrants in California and how clusters of exclusionary experiences are associated with health care access and health status.

On April 5 from 3-4pm Cornelius Fritz (Penn State) will join CDWG to discuss his approach to novel data techniques that combine statistical and machine learning thinking.  Dr. Fritz is an interim professor in statistics and data science at LMU Munich. In this context, his research mainly revolves around analyzing dynamic networks to answer questions posed within substantive sciences, e.g., Political Science and Sociology, through novel data analysis techniques that combine statistical and machine learning thinking.