NORC at the University of Chicago

“When I was in college, I always knew about the GSS. Imagine you are a young kid going out and seeing the moon and hoping that one day you could take a spaceship and get up there. It was a dream all those years...and here I am serving as director now of the GSS.” In the return of the #EquityCorps video series, The General Social Survey director René Bautista, Ph.D. talks to Michelle M Johns, PhD, MPH from NORC’s Center on Equity Research about what it means to him to lead one of the largest longitudinal surveys on the attitudes, opinions, and behaviors of the American public. Watch the video to see the whole interview!

Very excited for this talk, where I’ll be sharing some research about supporting loved ones (especially romantic partners) recovering from eating disorders. An excellent lineup!

At the 2024 Justice Community Opioid Innovation Network (JCOIN) meeting, Alex Kresovich highlighted our team's groundbreaking work on opioid-related content on social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram. 🔍Our research offers pivotal insights into how these platforms influence public opinion and dialogue around the opioid crisis. Using CrowdTangle, we collected data from Facebook and Instagram posts related to the opioid epidemic in the US, spanning from July 1, 2022, to June 30, 2023. We focused on the top 0.5% of posts with the highest engagement, analyzing 1,267 key posts. Key Findings: 🚓 Law enforcement narratives dominated the conversation, with frequent mentions of fentanyl and heroin. 💔 Discussions on opioid treatments and harm reduction were notably sparse. ⚖️ Partisan differences were evident: right-leaning accounts blamed drug dealers and government policies, often using sensationalist language. 💬 Celebrity overdose news, though rare, generated high engagement. 📰 Local news posts focused heavily on criminality and police action, often mirroring police press releases. 📊 Our research reveals a shift towards a criminal justice lens in public discourse around the opioid crisis. Right-leaning narratives are more prevalent, with limited criticism of pharmaceutical companies or healthcare providers. The emphasis on celebrity overdoses and police narratives highlights significant societal influences on public perception. Opportunities Ahead: 💡Public health entities can leverage these insights to promote evidence-based information and foster constructive conversations. 🤝By collaborating with influential social media accounts and law enforcement, we can help reshape the narrative and tackle the opioid crisis more effectively. #OpioidCrisis #PublicHealth #SocialMediaResearch #JCOIN2024 #EvidenceBasedPolicy #HealthCommunication

Another post of a fantastic NORC at the University of Chicago colleague presenting at #ARM24. This is Sammy Augenbraun, MPH presenting important findings from research on hospital-community partnerships in rural America. Thank you for your great contribution, Sammy!

If you follow the news, you might think crime rates are on the rise. But what do the data really say? NORC’s John Roman joins forces with Elizabeth Glazer of Vital City to share data-driven insights on how cities like New York City are really doing when it comes to crime—despite what you may have seen in the news. (Spoiler: Crime in New York and across the nation is lower than it’s ever been.) “So are things perfect? Of course not,” they write. “But we are in a so much better place now than 10, 20, 50, 100 and 2,500 years ago. The problems, and their complexity, are coming into focus.” 🔗 https://lnkd.in/e8ffcc8H

Dear Colleagues, We are excited to announce our upcoming CIRS/SWB Webinar titled “An Overview of Statistical Data Integration in Health Policy” by Susan Paddock to take place on July 24, 12-1:30 PM ET.   Our webinar series, sponsored jointly by the American Statistical Association’s Committee on International Relations in Statistics (CIRS) and by Statistics Without Borders (SWB), provides introductory lectures by experts on important topics of current interest, and is aimed at an international audience. Please join us and share this with interested colleagues. Participation is free but registration is required.      Registration Link: https://lnkd.in/eAZaT9Ki Events Website: https://lnkd.in/gCuUjB4V Abstract: Data integration techniques leverage the relative strengths of input sources to obtain a blended source that is richer and more informative than any single component. This is important for health policy, as analyses typically rely on a variety of data sources, most of which were not designed for the intended research use case. These data sources include electronic health records, health care claims and other administrative data, surveys, and more. In this webinar, an overview of opportunities and challenges of statistical data integration to facilitate health policy analysis will be provided. The presentation will include the use of a data quality framework for structuring data quality assessments of candidate input data sources. The statistical techniques to be presented include combining probability surveys with nonprobability (convenience) sources, blending randomized controlled trial data with data representing ‘real world populations,’ small area estimation, and method for expanding the number of variables in a dataset via record linkage or statistical matching (data fusion). Motivating examples will be provided to illustrate concepts.     About the presenter: Dr. Susan Paddock is Chief Scientist and Executive Vice President at NORC at the University of Chicago. Her team at NORC includes statisticians, survey methodologists, data scientists, quantitative social scientists, and AI researchers who are engaged in projects for federal, other governmental, and private sector clients on topics that span multiple substantive research areas including education, health, global, and public affairs. Susan has published methodological developments in the areas of Bayesian methods, causal inference, hierarchical modeling, longitudinal data analysis, and missing data techniques. Susan is a fellow of the American Statistical Association and has served on editorial boards for several journals, including Annals of Applied Statistics, Journal of the American Statistical Association, and Harvard Data Science Review.   #SWB #CIRS #statisticswebinars #dataintegration #stats #statistics #NORC

We’re excited to welcome Robert Goerge to NORC as a senior fellow in the Economics, Justice & Society department. Robert brings his expertise in using administrative and other alternative sources of data to build evidence that policymakers can use to improve programs serving children and their families. Welcome Bob! https://lnkd.in/gZ2XhGXH?

Work from the Health Implementation Science Center (#HISC) was featured at the 2024 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (#ARM24) earlier this week. NORC #HISC team member, Krysta Heaney-Huls presented “How to Measure the Impact of Patient-Centered Clinical Decision Support (#PCCDS) on Patient Lifeflow and Clinical Workflow" during the Digital Technologies, Data, and Analytics poster session. She also joined the panel session on "Advancements in Health Equity Data Collection, Standardization, and Reporting." Desirae Leaphart Mensah presented “Improving Interoperability of Patient Apps with the Health IT Ecosystem.” Mithuna Srinivasan presented "An Outcomes Evaluation of a Federally Qualified Health Center-Based Food Is Medicine Intervention" during the Promising Interventions to Address Social Needs: Evaluation of Interventions to Address Identified Social Needs session.

📣 BRAVO 📣 to my teammates at NORC at the University of Chicago - Kristen Hayashi and Michaela Kirby - for presenting our poster, "Analyzing the Cost of Care for Medicaid Enrollees with Sickle Cell Disease (SCD)," at the 2024 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting this past weekend. In our study, we found enrollees with the severe form of SCD utilized significantly more health care services, including 25 emergency department visits per year, compared to all enrollees with the disease. Sickle cell disease is an inherited, chronic blood disorder that can cause serious complications and other co-occurring conditions. It is estimated to impact as many as 100,000 individuals in the U.S., half of whom are enrolled in Medicaid. In December 2023, the FDA approved two potentially curative gene therapies for SCD that may reduce the high annual costs that state Medicaid programs spend on care for certain individuals with this disease. #HealthCareStrategy #healthcare #healthcarepolicy #Medicaid #SickleCellDisease #CMS #CMMI #AcademyHealth #ARM #AcademyHealthARM #NORC

Coming soon: The NORC #EquityCorps video series returns! While you wait, check out this video from last year’s series featuring the Center on Equity Research’s director, Ashani Johnson-Turbes, and associate director, Vincent Welch Jr. 🍿