Postdoctoral Researcher(s) in Economic Demography, Department of Economic History – Lund University (11/15/25)
Tanveer, Mooney, and Santaularia Gomez Publish Article on IPV Google Searches Before and After Dobbs
CSDE Trainee Alum Maryam Tanveer (Epidemiology), CSDE Affiliate Steve Mooney (Epidemiology), CSDE Affiliate Jeanie Santaularia Gomez (Epidemiology), and co-authors just published an article in the American Journal of Epidemiology, titled, “Intimate partner violence Google searches before and after the Dobbs decision.” The authors use a novel infodemiology approach, leveraging online data to generate timely insights into IPV-related help-seeking behavior as a consequence of the Dobbs decision. The findings do not indicate a measurable change in national-level IPV-related Google search behavior following Dobbs, with the exception of a modest increase in Texas. However, the absence of clear post-Dobbs changes may reflect limitations of Google search data rather than a true lack of policy-driven effects on IPV.
van Draanen on Reimagining Overdose Research
CSDE Affiliate Jenna van Draanen (Child, Family, and Population Health Nursing) marked National Overdose Awareness Month (October) by discussing how overdose research has evolved over time to recognize overdose as a social issue and the value of harm reduction. van Draanen highlighted the creation of READU (Research with Expert Advisors on Drug Use), a group made up of researchers, clinicians, and people with lived and living experience of substance use. READU is currently undertaking a study, Overdose Response Centering Inequity and Diversity, that looks at changes in emergency medical services (EMS) in King County, Washington. The research team includes van Draanen, CSDE Affiliates Ohshue Gatanaga (Health Services), India Ornelas (Health Systems and Population Health), and Emily Williams (Health Services), as well as UW co-authors and community researchers.
Cha Publishes on Gender Differences in Trends in Spousal Caregiving for Older Adults
CSDE Affiliate Hyungmin Cha (Sociology) and a co-author just published an article in the Journal of Marriage and Family. Cha and his co-author analyze data from the 2000–2018 Health and Retirement Study to assess trends in the prevalence of spousal caregiving among both men and women. The authors observe no change in spousal caregiving rates among women over time, while the prevalence of male spousal caregivers rose from approximately 6% to 11% between 2002 and 2018. However, this increase is mostly reflected in secondary, instrumental, and low-intensity caregiving roles.
Bennett Publishes Article on Data Sources and Gaps on Arctic infrastructure
CSDE Affiliate Mia M. Bennett (Geography) recently published an article titled, “Utilizing Arctic infrastructure data for ecological restoration, just transitions, and protection of cultural heritage” in the journal Sustainable Earth Reviews. Climate change is leading to much greater maritime access in the Arctic, creating both challenges and opportunities for infrastructure planning. Bennett and co-authors conducted an integrative review of key data sources on Arctic infrastructure. This approach includes cultural heritage alongside ecological criteria because “brownfield” redevelopment is a critical key to “greenfield” preservation, and planning a just transition requires attention to the historical and social contexts of past decision-making. Read more.
Mooney, Rowhani-Rahbar, and Wagenaar Publish Research on the Association Between Vacant Lot Redevelopment and Violent Crime
CSDE Affiliates Steve Mooney (Epidemiology), Ali Rowhani-Rahbar (Epidemiology), and Bradley H. Wagenaar (Global Health), along with co-authors Nicole Asa and Hiwot Y. Zewdie, published findings from a difference-in-difference analysis of the association between vacant lot redevelopment and violent/firearm violent crime in the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH). The study population was 254 vacant lots located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the exposure was redevelopment, defined as repurposing the vacant lot into a permanent structure (e.g., housing) between 2007 and 2023. The authors found a negative association between redevelopment and aggravated assault, firearm aggravated assault, and overall firearm violent crime. Read more.
Spencer Serves as Guest Editor for Special Issue on the Future of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in Social Work
CSDE Affiliate Michael Spencer (Ballmer Endowed Dean and Professor, Social Work) served as guest editor for a recent special issue of the Journal of Ethnic & Cultural Diversity in Social Work, titled “The Future of Race, Ethnicity, and Culture in Social Work: Challenges and Opportunities.” Spencer and co-editors introduce the special issue as an endeavor to create an intellectual space to imagine or re-imagine what the future of race, ethnicity and culture would look like and the opportunities they hold for social work practice, research, and education. The special edition includes thirteen articles that take different perspectives and foci, spanning the perspective of the Social Work Grand Challenges, issues related to knowledge production and education, and the unique challenges encountered by different communities nationally and globally.
CIFAR Azrieli Global Scholars Program – Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (11/05/25)
*New* CSDE Computational Demography Working Group (CDWG): Chaytan Inman (11/05/25)
When: November 5, 2025, 10 – 11 am
Where: Raitt 223 and on Zoom
On November 5, CSDE’s Computational Demography Working Group will host Chaytan Inman (Seattle Strange), who will present on “Studying Disinformation Narratives on Social Media with LLMs and Semantic Similarity.” Inman will be demonstrating the Twitter Narrative Analysis Dashboard developed for their graduate degree thesis. The tool is capable of tracing a short target narrative of natural language text across a dataset of tweets or other short form text. It computes a similarity score with each other text item in the dataset and graphs the resulting similarities over time for analysis. Inman validated this methodology by recreating the findings of disinformation researchers studying the 2020 election hoax narrative, and also by benchmarking the model on the GLUE STS-B. The benchmark findings show that the model strongly correlates to human judgement for rating similarity of natural language. The case study findings show that the dashboard tool is useful to find nuanced ways of spreading disinformation like sewing early seeds of doubt, while drastically reducing the researcher’s labor to code misinformative tweets. The Twitter Narrative Analysis Dashboard is available publicaly with my permission, and researchers interested in using it or forking the repository are welcome to contact Inman to chat!
______________
Chaytan Inman is a researcher and political activist with a passion for applying AI and machine learning to real-world challenges. Inman earned aBachelor’s in Computer Science from the University of Washington in 2024, where they founded and led Interactive Intelligence, a diverse community fusing AI and neuroscience. One of their proudest achievements was developing free introductory NeuroAI courses for UW students, ensuring accessible education in emerging fields. Later, Inman ran for office in Washington state, advocating for Earth rights and environmental justice. As a recent graduate of the Master’s in International Studies at the UW Jackson School, Inman completed their thesis on social media analysis and disinformation research to leverage AI at the intersection of technology, society, and politics. Now Inman is a software developer, helping the Seattle Stranger and EverOut build strong local progressive media in the Pacific Northwest and beyond.