NEA and NIH co-host live webinar on new funding opportunity on culture and health

Thursday, October 4, 2012, 3:00 – 4:00 pm, EST

 

How does culture affect health-related beliefs and practices? Artists and arts organizations may help answer this question through a new funding opportunity from the National Institutes of Health. This Request for Applications (RFA) will support research projects that bring together teams of social and behavioral researchers and arts and cultural experts to gain new insights into the relationships between culture and health. NEA co-hosts this webinar with the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) at the National Institutes of Health. Bill Elwood of OBSSR will present this grant announcement from the NIH Basic Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network  (OppNet), a trans-NIH initiative that funds activities to build the collective body of knowledge about the nature of behavior and social systems.  Also joining the webinar are several NIH program directors who serve as scientific contacts for the OppNET RFA. This is the first-time the NIH has embedded the arts into an OppNet RFA on the social sciences. 

 

For more than a year, the NEA Interagency Task Force on the Arts and Human Development has brought together federal agencies – including the NIH – to promote more and better research on how the arts help people reach their full potential at all stages of life. This OppNet RFA aligns with the NEA Task force goals.

 

The NEA and the Interagency Task Force periodically host public webinars to share compelling research, practices, and/or funding opportunities for research in the arts and human development. Task Force members include representatives from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Department of Education, and other agencies and departments.  More information on the Task Force can be found at http://www.nea.gov/research/convenings.html 

 

Guests and speakers

 

• Sunil Iyengar, Director of Research & Analysis, NEA, will moderate the webinar
• Bill Elwood, Coordinator, NIH Basic Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network (OppNet)
• Eva Caldera, Assistant Chairman for Partnership and Strategic Initiatives, National Endowment for the Humanities
• Dorothy Castille, the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), invited
• Richard Jenkins, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
• Lana Shekim, The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)
• Alan VanBiervliet, National Library of Medicine (NLM)

 

How to join the webinar

 

 The webinar is free and open to the public.  No registration is required. 

 

Media may RSVP to Sally Gifford, NEA Public Affairs Specialist at 202-682-5606 or giffords@arts.gov.

 

To join the webinar, go to http://artsgov.adobeconnect.com/artsdev5/  and check the "Enter as Guest" radio button. Type in your name and click hit "Enter Room" to join.  

 

You may listen using your computer's speakers or dial-in to 1-877-685-5350 and use participant code: 739587. Attendees will be muted but able to type in questions and comments through a text Q&A box.

 

Follow the conversation on Twitter @NEAarts with the hashtag #NEAtaskforce.

 

An archive of the webinar will be available on Monday, October 8, 2012 at http://www.arts.gov/research/convenings/

Archives of the "Weight of the Nation Conference"

Weight of the Nation^TM 2012 Conference:
Moving Forward, Reversing the Trend

Sponsored by the United States Department of Health and Human Services, and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
May 7-9, 2012; Washington, D.C.

Information, programs, presentations, and videos can be found at:

http://adph.org/ALPHTN/Default.asp?id=5822

Jenine Harris: Understanding the use of social media in public health

WU-CDTR Featured Investigator -- Jenine Harris

Our center is pleased to introduce Dr. Jenine Harris as our featured investigator. Dr. Harris received her PhD from Saint Louis University and is an Assistant Professor in the Public Health Program at the George Warren Brown School of Social Work at Washington University in St. Louis.

Dr. Harris’ work focuses on the use of systems approaches and network methods to understand and strengthen the public health system.  She is interested in how local health departments use new media as a tool to translate and disseminate evidence about public health programs like diabetes. Through her membership in the WU-CDTR, Dr. Harris participates in works-in-progress meetings where investigators workshop current research and ideas with other center members, and she receives WU-CDTR core support for her new project.

In this project, Dr. Harris has examined how local health departments nationwide are using Twitter to communicate with their constituents about diabetes.  Educating and informing the public about diabetes and other public health problems are among the essential services provided by local health departments. Although social media is widely used as a source of health information by the public, and especially those with diabetes, not much is known about how local health departments use social media to disseminate health information. Out of the 217 local health departments across the country using Twitter, 126 were tweeting about diabetes. Health departments tweeting about diabetes were more likely to be in larger jurisdictions with more staff and higher spending than local health departments not tweeting about diabetes. Local health departments tweeting about diabetes were also significantly more likely to employ a public information specialist and were conducting or contracting programs in diabetes or in nutrition and physical activity. While there was no significant difference in diabetes rate in jurisdictions with local health departments tweeting about diabetes compared to those not, there was a significant positive association between diabetes rate and the percent of tweets about diabetes. Local health departments are beginning to use social media to inform the public about health, and about diabetes in particular; public health researchers and practitioners need to better understand the potential of this new tool for educating and informing the public.

Dr. Harris says, “For new researchers interested in diabetes, the CDTR has been an excellent partner, providing the needed human, informational, and financial resources that allowed me and my team to complete our first diabetes-related project.”

Dr. Harris is also active outside of her work at the Brown School. She just started playing tennis and is a part of a tennis team. Their team won the St. Louis area tournament and went to regionals in Des Moines this summer. They didn’t win but had fun visiting the Iowa State Fair and seeing the Butter Cow.