Social and Behavioral Sciences Section
The scientists in the Social and Behavioral Sciences Section have expertise in a range of disciplines, including:
- Communication science.
- Diversity and inclusion science.
- Gerontology.
- Health equity and disparities research.
- Health promotion.
- Human-computer artificial intelligence interaction.
- Nursing.
- Preventive medicine.
- Public health.
- Social and health psychology.
- Social epidemiology.
The section draws on this diverse expertise for collaborative research efforts across multiple topic areas. It uses quantitative and qualitative methodological approaches to better understand, predict and influence social and behavioral factors to improve health, well-being and healthcare delivery. The section's work addresses social and behavioral factors relevant to various diseases and conditions to improve patient care and quality of life, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, kidney disease and obesity.
The section's work addresses multiple practice priorities, including supporting the workforce, working to dismantle racism, fostering a high-quality and safe patient experience, reducing friction for patients and healthcare professionals, and improving the speed and quality of decision-making.
Recent projects and studies include:
- A qualitative examination of communication challenges and technology workarounds in perioperative nursing. This collaborative project used focus groups and narrative mapping to examine nursing communication and technology workflow gaps and opportunities throughout the perioperative practice. Nurse participants identified communication inconsistencies, omissions and limited bidirectional communication as issues that contributed to breakdowns in team communication and patient care. The team offered recommendations for future interventions to reduce inconsistencies and selective communication.
- A study of virtual reality as a tool to improve equity and inclusion. This collaborative project included a randomized controlled trial to examine the impact of first-person embodied experiences of racism and upstander behavior rehearsal on cross-cultural empathy, perspective-taking and upstander behavior.
- A study to identify strategies to support pediatric patients who experience racism. This qualitative study applies a community-based participatory research approach to elicit formative data on pediatric patient experiences of racism in the healthcare setting and explore clinic-based opportunities to support pediatric patients experiencing racism.