September 5
Antonio Morgan-Lopez, RTI
“Modeling Group Membership Turnover in
"Ecologically-Valid"
Alcoholism Treatment Interventions: The Case for
Latent Class Pattern
Mixture Modeling”
September 19
Dr. Priscilla Wald, Duke University
“The Outbreak Narrative: Disease Emergence and the Obscured
Geography of Poverty”
October 3
No colloquia
October 17
Seth M. Noar, University of Kentucky
“Does Tailoring Matter? Meta-analytic Review of Tailored Print Health
Behavior Change Interventions”
October 31
Michael Emch, UNC, Dept. of Geography
"Spatial, Environmental, and Social Network Analysis in
Vaccine Trials"
November 14
Jane Brown, UNC, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
“The Mass Media and Adolescents' Sexual Health”
Additional
Information
September 5
Antonio Morgan-Lopez [PDF flyer] (Intro by Susan Ennett)
RTI
amorganlopez@rti.org
"Modeling Group Membership Turnover in 'Ecologically-Valid' Alcoholism
Treatment Interventions: The Case for
Latent Class Pattern Mixture
Modeling"
Abstract: In community-based alcoholism and drug abuse treatment
programs,
the majority of interventions are delivered in a group therapy
context, usually with
open (or "rolling") enrollment. In turn,
treatment providers and funding agencies
have called for more research on group
therapy interventions in an effort to make
the emerging empirical literature on
the treatment of alcoholism and substance
abuse more ecologically valid.
Unfortunately, the complexity of data structures
derived from therapy groups
(due to member interdependence and turnover in
group membership over time) and
the present lack of statistically valid approaches
to analyzing data from
rolling treatment groups have contributed to a significant
stifling effect on
group therapy research.
As the problem of handling turnover in group membership
went unsolved in the
methodological literature, and as negative critiques of
study designs with "natural"
turnover in membership persisted in
grant reviews, investigators (understandably)
avoided
"community-friendly" and ecologically-valid designs (i.e., groups
with
session-to-session turnover) for behavioral treatment trials. However,
this created
a significant disconnect between the federal (i.e., NIDA, NIAAA)
treatment
research portfolio and how treatment is done in community settings.
In this
presentation, we give an overview of a small, but emerging program of
research
on models to defensibly account for turnover in group membership in
drug and
alcoholism treatment trials. We propose latent class pattern mixture
modeling
(LCPMM) as a statistically and conceptually defensible approach for
modeling
treatment data from rolling groups and provide a gentle introduction
to the
technique.
September 19
Dr. Priscilla Wald [PDF flyer] (Intro
by Noel Brewer)
Professor, English and Women’s Studies
Duke University
pwald@duke.edu
“The Outbreak Narrative: Disease Emergence and the Obscured
Geography of Poverty”
Abstract: Accounts of newly surfacing diseases appeared in
scientific publications
and the mainstream media in the West with increasing
frequency following the
introduction of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV)
in the mid-1980s. They
put the
vocabulary of disease outbreaks into circulation, and they introduced the
concept of “emerging infections.” While
these accounts were neither monolithic,
nor static, their repetition of
particular phrases, images and story lines produced a
formula that was
amplified by the extended treatment of these themes in the
popular novels and
films that proliferated in the mid-1990s. Collectively, they
drew out what was implicit in all of the accounts: a
fascination not just with the
novelty and danger of the microbes, but also with
the changing social formations
of a shrinking world.
The outbreak narrative--in its scientific,
journalistic,
and fictional incarnations--
follows a formulaic plot that begins with
the
identification of an emerging infection,
includes discussion of the
global
networks throughout which it travels, and
chronicles the
epidemiological work
that ends with its containment. As the
epidemiologists trace the routes of the microbes, they catalogue the
figures
and
spaces of global modernity. Microbes, figures, and spaces
blend together as they
animate the
landscape and motivate the plot of the outbreak narrative: a
contradictory but
compelling story of the perils of human interdependence and
the triumph
of
human connection and cooperation, scientific authority and the
evolutionary
advantages of the microbe, ecological balance and impending
disaster. These stories have consequences. As they
disseminate information,
they affect
survival rates and contagion routes. They promote or mitigate the
stigmatizing of individuals, groups,
populations, locales (regional and global),
behaviors and lifestyles,
and they
change economies.
They also influence how both scientists and the lay
public understand the nature
and consequences of infection, how we imagine the
threat and why we react so
fearfully to some disease outbreaks and not others
at least as dangerous and
pressing, as well as which problems merit our
attention and resources.
October 17
Seth M. Noar [PDF flyer] (Intro by Noel Brewer)
Department of Communication
University of Kentucky
noar@uky.edu
"Does Tailoring Matter? Meta-analytic Review of Tailored Print Health
Behavior Change Interventions" Abstract: Although there is a large and growing literature on tailored
print health behavior change interventions, it is currently not known
if or to what extent tailoring works. The current study provides a
meta-analytic review of this literature, with a primary focus on the
effects of tailoring. A comprehensive search strategy yielded 57
studies that met inclusion criteria. Those studies, which contained a
cumulative N = 58,454, were subsequently meta-analyzed. The sample-size
weighted mean effect size of the effects of tailoring on health
behavior change was found to be r = .074. Variables that were found to
significantly moderate the effect included 1) type of comparison
condition; 2) health behavior; 3) type of subject population (both type
of recruitment and country of sample); 4) type of print material; 5)
number of intervention contacts; 6) length of follow-up; 7) number and
type of theoretical concepts tailored on; and 8) whether or not
demographics and/or behavior were tailored on. Implications of these
results are discussed and future directions for research on tailored
health messages and interventions are offered.
October 31
Michael
Emch
[PDF flyer] (Intro
by ?? maybe Jo Anne Earp)
Associate Professor
UNC, Dept. of Geography
emch@email.unc.edu
"Spatial, Environmental, and Social Network Analysis in
Vaccine Trials"
November 14
Jane Brown [PDF flyer] (Intro by
Noel Brewer)
UNC, School of Journalism and Mass Communication
jane_brown@unc.edu
“The Mass Media and Adolescents' Sexual Health”
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