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| AwardNumber | Title | NSFOrganization | Program(s) | StartDate | LastAmendmentDate | PrincipalInvestigator | State | Organization | AwardInstrument | ProgramManager | EndDate | AwardedAmountToDate | Co-PIName(s) | PIEmailAddress | OrganizationStreet | OrganizationCity | OrganizationState | OrganizationZip | OrganizationPhone | NSFDirectorate | ProgramElementCode(s) | ProgramReferenceCode(s) | ARRAAmount | Abstract | |
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| 2026631 | RAPID: Real time monitoring of information consumption regarding the coronavirus | SES | AIB-Acctble Institutions&Behav, Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, Sociology, Methodology, Measuremt & Stats, Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace | 04/15/2020 | 04/06/2020 | David Lazer | MA | Northeastern University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 03/31/2021 | $200,000.00 | Alessandro Vespignani, Briony Swire-Thompson | [email protected] | 360 HUNTINGTON AVE | BOSTON | MA | 021155005 | 6173733004 | SBE | 120Y, 1321, 1331, 1333, 8060 | 025Z, 065Z, 096Z, 7434, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of accurate information as a vehicle for helping the public take needed steps to ensure their health and safety. But social media contain both accurate and inaccurate information. This project will analyze how social media affects the quality of information received by people during the extended crisis. Who receives what information? And in what ways do social media amplify or dampen informational inequalities? The project will build a real-time monitor of information consumption regarding the corona virus, drawn largely from Twitter. Specifically, the project will: (1) build a real time monitor of information regarding the corona virus that would be made available to state and local officials; and (2) evaluate how a medium such as Twitter amplifies/dampens existing informational inequalities around socioeconomic status. The project will focus on identification of misinformation (e.g., ersatz cures) that pose health risks. The project will supply aggregate information to relevant state and local officials regarding the type and quality of information regarding corona virus circulating in their communities, thus informing interventions that public officials can make to combat that misinformation. More generally, the project will identify patterns of information that governmental officials can use to combat misinformation during other extended crises, including those with public health as well as other origins.<br/><br/>Responding appropriately to COVID-19 requires that individuals have accurate information about how it is spread and what they can do to mitigate virus effects. However, misinformation is prevalent, with Twitter being a major source of both accurate and inaccurate information. This project will utilize a matched sample of 1.8 million Twitter handles and voter registration data. The large scale of the data will permit production of reasonable inferences of content sharing at subnational levels?at the state level, and within regions for large states. Because the Twitter data will be linked to voter registration records, and because voter registration data includes information on age, gender, race, partisanship, and address, thus allowing linkage to census tract information, the project will be able to evaluate the relationship between socioeconomic status and information exposure. Further, the project will augment with a survey of about 2000 of the matched data to further examine the factors that affect the quality of information people receive about the corona virus. Findings from the project will inform theories in the social sciences regarding information diffusion, socioeconomic inequality, social media usage, the security of cyberspace, and political differentiation.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028062 | RAPID: Rural Crisis Decision-Making: Risk Information Management and Reactions to Precaution Recommendations During the COVID-19 Pandemic in Appalachia | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 05/01/2020 | 04/29/2020 | Daniel Totzkay | WV | West Virginia University Research Corporation | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $109,440.00 | Jamison Conley, Megan Dillow, Alan Goodboy, Shari Haxel | [email protected] | P.O. Box 6845 | Morgantown | WV | 265066845 | 3042933998 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 1321, 7914 | $0.00 | The spread of the coronavirus has led to extensive dissemination of information as well as misinformation, but protective recommendations center mainly on urban issues (e.g., avoiding public transit or working from home) that may be irrelevant or impossible in rural settings such as the Appalachian region of the U.S. Understanding the risk information needs and management strategies of individuals in this rural region is vital to managing the response to the COVID-19 pandemic and future pandemics, as these areas appear to be particularly vulnerable to such health crises for a host of reasons (e.g., increased morbidity and mortality in rural populations, limited access to healthcare). Reactions to the coronavirus have not been reliably preventive or defensive due to a host of psychological, communicative, political, and demographic factors that influence how individuals process and respond to information related to significant, widespread health threats such as the COVID-19 pandemic. The interdisciplinary approach of this research considers individual-level psychological characteristics, communicative processes, relational interactions, and media use behaviors intrinsic to risk response, as well as the interplay of partisanship and relied-upon partisan information sources and place-based constraints on information and care access that characterize rural America and especially Appalachia. Knowledge gleaned from this research will help improve Appalachian residents? health and ability to use communication strategies more effectively in response to future pandemics.<br/><br/>Using a multi-wave quantitative panel study, this research investigates responses to the coronavirus pandemic in rural Appalachia. The research features an 8 week longitudinal study of Appalachian adults recruited and managed by Qualtrics. Each individual completes bi-weekly surveys to measure and examine trajectories of coronavirus/COVID-19 perceptions and reactions to official precautions. This project seeks to understand how individuals? perceptions of risk, efficacy, and precautions, and factors such as stress and anxiety change over time due to time-invariant predictors and time-varying predictors. Time-invariant measures, assessed only during the first wave of data collection, include personality traits, uncertainty intolerance, partisanship, political ideology, travel time to nearest primary care facility, health insurance coverage, and personal demographics (i.e., age, sex, education, income, and race/ethnicity). Time-variant measures, assessed at all four time points, include perceived COVID-19 severity and susceptibility and precaution efficacy; COVID-19 uncertainty discrepancy, emotional reactions, anticipated outcomes, efficacy perceptions, and information management behaviors; evaluation of COVID-19 messages, media use, COVID-19 thought-listing, depression, anxiety, and stress, repetitive thoughts and behaviors related to COVID-19, COVID-19 interpretation bias, employment status, and perceived impediments to care. Results from this research will advance knowledge of human behavior across several social science disciplines, inform applied research regarding anxiety and mental health in Appalachia, and improve health communication interventions designed to increase protective health actions in future health crises.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2026763 | RAPID; Information and Implications for Protection Motivation and Action During the COVID-19 Outbreak | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace | 04/01/2020 | 03/30/2020 | Hank Jenkins-Smith | OK | University of Oklahoma Norman Campus | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 03/31/2021 | $200,000.00 | Scott Robinson, Carol Silva, Joseph Ripberger, Kuhika Gupta | [email protected] | 201 Stephenson Parkway | NORMAN | OK | 730199705 | 4053254757 | SBE | 1321, 8060 | 025Z, 065Z, 096Z, 7434, 7914, 8060, 9150, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | The current spread of, and alarm about, the COVID-19 virus provides a unique and ephemeral opportunity to obtain meaningful time-series survey data on public beliefs, attitudes, behaviors, and the receipt of information of various kinds about the disease and its effects on taking protective action. The National Institute for Risk and Resilience (NIRR) utilizes its on-going Twitter data collection associated with coronavirus (collected since January 2020), and undertakes a series of monthly nation-wide surveys on public views to test the broader publics? receipt of, trust in, and use of information about the virus posted on social media. The surveys will include questions about protective action behavior, trust in key actors, perceptions of risk associated with the outbreak, and perceptions of information accuracy/inaccuracy. The complementary survey and social media data streams will allow tracking the spread and penetration of information over time and as the disease spreads in order to match various narratives as they emerge on social media along with beliefs measured in the contemporaneous survey data. The time sensitive data will permit testing of hypotheses about the dynamic relationships between the spread of information in social media, broader public beliefs and behaviors, and effects on protective behaviors that may influence the spread of contagious diseases.<br/><br/>The goal of this study is to measure and track the influence of information about the COVID-19 pandemic on Twitter among members of the broader US public. The study integrates two complementary streams of data to systematically examine the impact of information bubbles and various forms of information on protection motivation and actions in response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the US. First, since January 2020 ,the research team has collected all messages on Twitter that relate to COVID-19, by establishing a connection with the Twitter streaming API. The team obtains all posts and metadata that include any of the following key words: coronavirus, COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, #coronavirus, #2019_nCov, and #COVID-19. From January 27 to Feb 24, the team collected more than 31 million different messages about the virus. The Twitter posts provide a continuous flow of data about the evolution of information networks and the promulgation and spread of information, but they do not provide information on the extent to which these factors are affecting protective motivations in the broader public and shaping the perceptions that drive them (such as trust in perceived risk). Second, the team collects online rolling nationwide surveys of the broader public?s understanding of COVID-19, with special attention to beliefs about the information that appears on Twitter, over the span of the next year. There are 10 nationwide surveys in all, one each month (time-series cross-sections), with collections timed to obtain 250 responses each week to increase the ability to quickly identify changes in beliefs, perceptions and associated protective behaviors. The surveys are designed to allow pairing the changing pattern of information of various sorts on social media with the receipt and belief of that information among the broader public. The experiments draw from the rise and spread of different kinds of information on Twitter.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2024124 | RAPID: Influences of the Coronavirus (COVID-19) Outbreak on Racial Discrimination, Identity Development and Socialization | BCS | Social Psychology, DS -Developmental Sciences | 05/01/2020 | 02/28/2020 | Charissa Cheah | MD | University of Maryland Baltimore County | Standard Grant | Peter Vishton | 04/30/2021 | $84,884.00 | Shimei Pan, Cixin Wang | [email protected] | 1000 Hilltop Circle | Baltimore | MD | 212500002 | 4104553140 | SBE | 1332, 1698 | 1332, 1698 | $0.00 | The ongoing Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak has, as of February 23rd, 2020, resulted in more than 78,811 infected and at least 2,445 deaths. Beyond the tragic health toll of this outbreak, there has been increased targeting of minority groups of U.S. residents. The Coronavirus outbreak has refueled stereotypes (e.g., eating ?strange? foods, having unsanitary lifestyles, being disease-ridden) that are veiled under health-related fears. Racial discrimination significantly decreases well-being and increases psychological distress as well as mental and physical health. Most studies on the effects of racism on identity, resilience, and parental socialization, have focused on discrimination among adolescents and emerging adults. This innovative interdisciplinary study will significantly advance our understanding of risk and resilience in response to acute social stress among families with children in three different age groups, early childhood (4-7 years), middle childhood (8-11 years) and early-to-mid adolescence (12-15 years). Findings will identify key developmental and social processes that influence how identities of racial minority parents and their children are formed. The influence of an acute but prolonged threat to their social identities resulting from the COVID-19 outbreak may provide insight into the general nature of this process as well. <br/><br/>This interdisciplinary team comprising a cultural developmental scientist, a school psychologist, and a computer scientist will study multiple forms of COVID-19 racial discrimination and the subsequent impact on the identity development and adjustment of minority parents and children. The study will focus on how parents socialize their children about issues of race and identity in reaction to this event at the early part of 2020 and again 6-9 months later. Protective factors for adjustment in parents and children will also be identified. In addition, large scale texts of outbreak-related social media (Twitter) posts will be analyzed to account for how public opinion, anxiety, and discriminatory attitudes evolve with the peaking and fading of this epidemic and provide objective indicators of the larger public social discourse climate across the year. Infectious diseases will continue to emerge and re-emerge globally, and their negative impact on psychological and social health is understudied but highly significant, leading to both significant social and economic consequences. Knowledge from this research may help inform the types of services and education that can promote well-being in targeted marginalized groups and the larger public during future similar events.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2026737 | RAPID: Impact of Coronavirus Understanding, Trust, and Other Public Beliefs and Attitudes on Behavioral Responses | SES | Security & Preparedness | 03/15/2020 | 03/30/2020 | Sara Goodman | CA | University of California-Irvine | Standard Grant | Zaryab Iqbal | 08/31/2020 | $53,040.00 | Thomas Pepinsky, Shana Gadarian | [email protected] | 141 Innovation Drive, Ste 250 | Irvine | CA | 926173213 | 9498247295 | SBE | 118Y | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has been described by the World Health Organization as a pandemic that will threaten lives the world over. Since first diagnosed in the United States in February 2020, coronavirus has spread rapidly across the country. The objective of this RAPID project is to collect a wide range of public opinion data from a representative sample of Americans to track the public reaction to coronavirus. Information on contemporary health scares typically lead individuals to favor health policy measures, such as vaccines and quarantines, and high levels of government trust to support coordinated responses to epidemics. <br/><br/>This project will study factors that shape the public reactions to coronavirus in the context of this rapidly unfolding public health emergency. Data will be collected in two waves from a large random sample of Americans using YouGov. The PIs will measure public understanding of coronavirus as well as public support for various policy responses to contain or manage the severity of the crisis. The study's findings will help to provide guidance on how public health authorities can best communicate with Americans, and can assist in targeting public health responses to those communities that may be most vulnerable to the virus but not aware of the danger that it presents.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2022216 | RAPID: Media Exposure, Objective Knowledge, Risk Perceptions, and Risk Management Preferences of Americans Regarding the Novel Coronavirus Outbreak | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 03/15/2020 | 03/18/2020 | Branden Johnson | OR | Decision Science Research Institute | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 02/28/2021 | $124,990.00 | Marcus Mayorga | [email protected] | 1201 Oak Street, Suite 200 | Eugene | OR | 974013515 | 5414852400 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The sudden observation in Wuhan, China, in December, 2019, of humans infected with a new virus (officially 2019-nCoV virus and COVID-19 disease, publicly known as ?the coronavirus?) provides yet another example of scientists and policymakers being surprised as a virus observed in animal and/or bird populations, or transmitted by mosquitoes, became infectious and damaging in humans (e.g., two coronaviruses: SARS 2002-2003, MERS 2012; recent major outbreaks of Ebola virus, 2014-2016, and Zika virus, 2015-2017). Understanding dynamics of public responses to such events under uncertainty is necessary to learn how to avoid either undue apathy or undue panic. This project explores how Americans? views of and behavior towards the coronavirus change?or do not change?over 9 months. This will serve the national interest in progress in science by improving our understanding of how people?s beliefs, attitudes, and behaviors interact both within the same person over time, and between people with individual differences in attitudes at a given time. The research tests a novel model of how views of personal and collective solutions to what appears to be an emerging pandemic are affected by beliefs and attitudes, which builds upon prior work including the Protection Action Decision Model. The research also may improve public health and prosperity by revealing what factors are associated with particular reactions that may make public health protection easier or harder to implement. It thus affects whether quarantines, travel bans, and other policies meant to be protective hamper or amplify economic growth as well. The project also tests messages about false beliefs and flu vaccine efficacy that may inform public health risk communication and thus improve public health.<br/><br/><br/>A longitudinal study design surveys the same Americans five times at 2-month intervals, thus over 9 months total. Each wave of the project asks the same questions: perceived risk; emotional reactions to the virus; reported personal protective behavior and support for actual or potential government policies; and beliefs about those behaviors and policies; trust in government; subjective and objective knowledge about the virus; psychological distance from the virus; how much individuals are following news about the virus; and which types of traditional and social media sources they use and which outlets they use (e.g., different TV channels or different social media sites). Repeating these questions over time allows the research team to examine whether changes occur in these views and behaviors over time, or relations between factors over time (for example, do risk perceptions actually predict later protective behaviors). Certain other factors, such as culture, conspiracy thoughts, and blatant and subtle prejudice?are measured during one survey wave as a control. The survey is complemented by content analysis of mass and social media information from sources that respondents report using, so the researchers can test effects of that exposure on objective knowledge, risk perceptions, and behaviors. An information manipulation experiment embedded in the last survey will allow testing of whether vaccination intentions for the influenza (?flu?) virus can be increased in light of perceived threat from this coronavirus, and whether false beliefs about the coronavirus threat and management can be diminished in the short-term.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2026337 | RAPID: Uncertain Risk and Stressful Future: A National Study of the COVID-2019 Outbreak in the U.S. | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, Social Psychology | 03/15/2020 | 03/20/2020 | Roxane Silver | CA | University of California-Irvine | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 02/28/2021 | $200,000.00 | Ellen Holman, John Dennis, Dana Rose Garfin | [email protected] | 141 Innovation Drive, Ste 250 | Irvine | CA | 926173213 | 9498247295 | SBE | 1321, 1332 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | In December 2019, scientists identified a novel Coronavirus (COVID-2019) that was associated with an outbreak of pneumonia in Wuhan, China and that was suspected of being zoonotic in origin. On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic, and on March 13, 2020, U.S. President Donald Trump declared a national emergency. Because individuals can transmit the illness prior to exhibiting symptoms (i.e., an ?invisible threat?), and in the absence of a vaccine for protection, the severity of this crisis and the timing of containment in the United States is unknown. In the context of this uncertainty and ambiguity about the immediate future, the research team studies emotional (fear, worry, distress), cognitive (perceived risk), and behavioral (media use, health protective behaviors) responses to the COVID-19 outbreak and how these early responses shape outcomes over time. The scholars examine how widespread media coverage of the COVID-19 outbreak is associated with acute stress responses to the threat, its success (or failure) in affording people the information needed to understand the threat, and how cognitive and affective processes shape risk assessments, behavioral responses, and mental health outcomes. This project is unique in studying the effects of risk perceptions, health protective behaviors, and acute stress on adjustment as an ambiguous global health threat unfolds. <br/><br/>The research is a longitudinal study of 5,000 people from the AmeriSpeak panel, a probability-based nationally representative sample of U.S. households on whom ?baseline? mental and physical health data have been collected prior to the start of the COVID-19 threat in the U.S. Two surveys administered over the next year examine respondents? risk perceptions, fear, media use, health protective behaviors, and distress surrounding the outbreak. The sample is drawn using sample stratification to assure sample representativeness with respect to age, gender, race/ethnicity, and Census Region. For Wave 1, the drawn sample is randomly assigned to one of three nationally representative replicates (i.e., cohorts) that have non-overlapping data collection periods of 2 calendar weeks, for a total of a 6-week fielding period. Each cohort thus represents a representative sample whose interviews are generalizable to point-in-time survey estimates for the 2-week period to which the cohort is mapped. A second survey is fielded on the Wave 1 sample within the next year, as the crisis unfolds (or abates). <br/><br/>Overall, this study assesses risk perceptions, media use, acute stress, social norms, self- and response-efficacy, and protective behaviors at the start of an ambiguous and deadly domestic threat on a large representative sample with existing pre-threat mental and physical health data. This provides a unique opportunity to examine national responses to an ongoing public health crisis as it unfolds, producing research with both theoretical and practical importance. The team has five specific aims: 1) Estimate COVID-19-related media exposure, COVID-19 risk perceptions, trust in institutions managing (and communicating about) COVID-19, and behavioral and emotional responses to perceived COVID-19 threat; 2) Investigate how type (e.g., television, Twitter, online news), amount (e.g., total hours), and content (e.g., imagery) of COVID-19-related media coverage are associated with risk perceptions, and behavioral and emotional responses (e.g., acute stress, somatization, depression); 3) Examine how ambiguity of the COVID-19 threat and inconsistencies in official communications about this threat are associated with perceived risk, as well as emotional and behavioral responses; 4) Investigate whether prior exposure to individual (e.g., childhood violence) and collective (e.g., 9/11) stress are associated with COVID-19-related risk perceptions and behavioral and emotional responses to the COVID-19 threat; and 5) Contrast key theories of health behavior in an epidemiological sample responding to a current and evolving threat. We expect that information collected in this research will advance future conceptual work on coping with highly stressful events by furthering our understanding of the extent to which traditional and non-traditional media coverage of the Coronavirus outbreak may be affecting individuals? risk perceptions and acute stress responses to it, providing information to facilitate early identification of individuals at risk for subsequent difficulties following potential public health crises, and explicitly integrating the stress and coping literature with the literature on risk analysis and perception.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029857 | RAPID: Testing Important Judgment/Decision Making Phenomena in the High-Incentive Context of Covid-19: The Understanding of Physicians and Laypersons | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 06/15/2020 | 06/10/2020 | Hal Arkes | OH | Ohio State University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 05/31/2021 | $86,689.00 | Brittany Shoots-Reinhard | [email protected] | Office of Sponsored Programs | Columbus | OH | 432101016 | 6146888735 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The coronavirus pandemic provides a rare opportunity to study public risk perceptions and risk-related behaviors in the midst of a World Health Organization Public Health Emergency of International Concern that could threaten the quality of life of a wide spectrum of Americans. Few emergencies within the United States have affected so many people. The situation is a rich opportunity because it is occurring in real-time and is highly dynamic, involving many players in our country and around the world. As a result, it allows the research team a chance to compare this health threat with other perceived disasters such as immigration, terrorism, and possible future public health emergencies. The public?s perceptions and risk-related behaviors seem likely to change over time in response to media coverage as well as actions from our own and foreign governments.<br/> <br/>In one longitudinal study, the research team invites participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete one survey each month for 5 months. The researchers query their risk perceptions and affective responses toward the coronavirus, frequency of discussions about the coronavirus with others, behavioral intentions towards hypothetical experimental vaccines and treatments, and support for possible policy solutions such as quarantine. The research also ascertains their intended travel plans and media exposure to the pandemic including how much they trust those sources. The team models the emotional, risk-perception, and behavioral responses of participants toward the coronavirus by using a latent variable growth curve model that examines the trajectories of variables over time. To establish causal links, the scholars also conduct a second related experiment that manipulates affect through narratives and examines its effects on risk perceptions, medical decisions, and policy decisions. Participants are assigned to a more negative or less negative condition, and mediation analysis is used to evaluate the manipulation?s effects. In these studies, theoretical links are made between risk perceptions, social amplification of risk, the affect heuristic and other functions of affect, and numeracy. There is a dynamic test of the three functions of affect by correlating current feelings over time with risk judgments, intended prevention and treatment behaviors, and support for policy options. Theoretical research on affect has not been tested in the setting of a world health emergency. This research results in deep mechanistic understanding of how emotions and media exposure influence vaccine and treatment choices as well as support for policies. Finally, the second study establishes causal links between affect and support for prevention, treatment, and policy strategies. The research tests the dynamic and causal power of the functions of affect and motivated reasoning in order to lay the groundwork for interventions for emotional responses to the coronavirus and future epidemics. The research also has important implications, including for communication methods, for other affect-rich decisions faced by the public and policy makers.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2026854 | RAPID: Implications of Coronavirus for Prejudices, Cultural Change, and Health | BCS | Social Psychology | 04/01/2020 | 03/25/2020 | Steven Neuberg | AZ | Arizona State University | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 03/31/2021 | $166,263.00 | D. Vaughn Becker, Michael Varnum | [email protected] | ORSPA | TEMPE | AZ | 852816011 | 4809655479 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The threat of infectious disease changes how people think and act in a number of ways. Some of these changes are obvious, such as hoarding and increased anxiety. Other changes are less obvious, such as increased negative feelings toward groups associated with disease and greater aversion to novelty. Both types of changes have significant implications for societal well-being and health. Infectious disease was once the leading source of mortality for humans. As a result, humans evolved a number of behavioral and cultural responses to help avoid infection. The spread of coronavirus provides a unique opportunity to explore important theoretical questions to better understand the psychological processes relating to perceptions of disease. This project investigates how disease cues are perceived and how they influence behavior in the context of a real-world threat (COVID-19). The research tests how local disease rates and other contextual factors influence the perceptions of disease cues and how this is influenced by various forms of bias. The research also tests the extent to which the spread of the coronavirus shapes the health-related behaviors and cognition of groups who are stigmatically associated with infectious disease. Because of the associated stigma of disease, it is hypothesized that some groups will avoid seeking treatment and will mask their disease symptoms, further exacerbating a dire situation. Phenomena cued by infectious disease threat (such as prejudice, stigma, or policy preferences) can have important consequences for efforts to reduce and treat infectious disease during epidemics. Refining such models will inform public health responses regarding the current outbreak and policies pertaining to future outbreaks. The COVID-19 pandemic will have broad economic and social impacts. Governments, institutions, and corporations will benefit from further understanding and modeling as they seek to respond and adapt to this crisis and future crises.<br/><br/>This RAPID project employs a mixed-methods approach (using big data and archival time-series data analyses, large-scale longitudinal surveys, and a cross-national study) to answer key questions regarding the social dynamics of how humans respond to infectious disease threat. By studying the spread of coronavirus in concert with changes in prejudices, social attitudes, and other social variables, the research tests the hypothesis that the behavioral immune system produces specific threat perceptions, cultural ideologies, behaviors, and practices associated with disease avoidance and other adaptive responses to infectious disease threat. The research assesses the extent to which prejudiced and discriminatory reactions to a variety of targets (ethnic minorities, sexual minorities, the obese, the elderly, immigrants) are specific to disease-related targets or are generalized to all outgroups. It also assesses the experiences and health-relevant decision making of groups who are sometimes stigmatized by their association with infectious diseases, lending insight into how stigma and prejudice influence health-related behaviors. The project aims to create new theoretical bridges among a diverse range of disciplines including social psychology, evolutionary psychology, epidemiology, public health, and econometrics.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027148 | RAPID: The Diffusion of Fear and Coronavirus: Tracking Individual Response Across Time and Space | SES | Sociology, Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace, EPSCoR Co-Funding | 04/15/2020 | 03/31/2020 | Kevin Fitzpatrick | AR | University of Arkansas | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 03/31/2021 | $184,257.00 | Grant Drawve, Casey Harris | [email protected] | 1125 W. Maple Street | Fayetteville | AR | 727013124 | 4795753845 | SBE | 1331, 8060, 9150 | 035Z, 065Z, 096Z, 7434, 7914, 9150, 9179 | $0.00 | The world is facing a pandemic owing to COVID-19. The economic and social disruption is just beginning, and many are fearful of the illness as well as effects on economic and social systems. Residents will continue to experience disruptions in their daily lives as more cases are detected in the coming weeks, in turn affecting their social and psychological wellbeing. This project will investigate the diffusion of fear and related mental and physical health behaviors across the United States amidst the crisis. This project examines how individuals? perceived risk and objective expressions of fear, including extreme social distancing, panic purchasing, and hoarding, are driven by demographic, physical and mental health, social connectivity, and media consumption characteristics. In addition, the project analyzes how community vulnerabilities, socioeconomic disadvantages, and geographic proximity to detected and disclosed coronavirus cases impact individual fear response behaviors simultaneously. Broadly, this project advances knowledge regarding how individuals respond to crises, personally and collectively, and benefits governmental leaders as well as citizens so they can better prepare resources to respond to future extreme events. Gathering indicators of well-being, along with assessing their impact provides valuable information to help organizations, governments, and policymakers better understand the personal, social and systemic ramifications of epidemiological disasters like the COVID-19 pandemic. Not only will the project illuminate how the victims of the pandemic are currently coping, but it also will provide information as to how social institutions are addressing the needs of these survivors ? thus, demonstrating the breadth and wealth of America?s social ties/resources, as well as their major deficiencies.<br/><br/><br/>This project analyzes fear generated by the COVID-19 pandemic as a function of social and community characteristics. It will develop a random, representative post-stratified, weighted sample of the United States population using an on-line survey of approximately 10,000 individuals. The 15-20 minute self-administered interview utilizes validated survey instruments capturing multiple dimensions of subjective and objective fear, mental and physical health, media consumption, and communication behaviors related to fear responses. In addition, using multiple geo-location markers, the project pairs individuals? responses with existing aggregate databases, including those capturing the locations of confirmed COVID-19 cases, specific community-level disease vulnerability, and macro-level socioeconomic disadvantages to enable the use of well-established standard linear modeling, as well as hierarchical modeling techniques nesting individual respondents in their respective geographic communities. The project is an excellent candidate for RAPID funding because fear and anxiety become heightened as more cases are reported; thus, it is critical to interview respondents at the height of their concerns to reflect the growing social anxiety that is so widespread during these times. The study will provide a baseline for evaluating dynamic changes in fear responses and general well-being. It will also address key questions in social science regarding how fear and anxiety moves in and around dynamic social environments both temporally and spatially, thus informing sociological theories involving changes in social capital and the culture of fear.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by Sociology, the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), and Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030139 | RAPID: Compounding Crises: Facing Hurricane Season in the Era of COVID-19 | SES | HDBE-Humans, Disasters, and th | 06/15/2020 | 06/09/2020 | Gabrielle Wong-Parodi | CA | Stanford University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 05/31/2021 | $199,890.00 | Dana Rose Garfin | [email protected] | 450 Jane Stanford Way | Stanford | CA | 943052004 | 6507232300 | SBE | 158y, 1638 | 096Z, 7914, 9102 | $0.00 | This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) grant provides funding to assess participants? crisis exposure, their threat perceptions, their self- and response-efficacy, their emotional responses and their engagement in health protective behaviors as relevant to COVID-19 and to hurricanes. As the 2020 hurricane season commences, millions of Americans residing in the Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coasts will face the likely possibility of dual crises ? COVID-19 and hurricane exposure ? with competing mitigation strategies. Experts project that there will be four hurricanes that will develop into major hurricanes (Categories 3, 4, or 5) in the Atlantic during the 2020 hurricane season (June 1st ? November 30th). Concurrently, many in the Atlantic and Gulf Coast states are seeing alarming increases in confirmed case of COVID-19. The confluence of crises in communities at risk for hurricane exposure may create an untenable and tragic situation where millions of people may be suddenly asked to flee from an approaching major hurricane to shelters, potentially imperiling themselves and others to COVID-19. Hurricane-force winds further compound the risk given the high potential for Coronavirus to spread via respiratory droplets, potentially creating super-spreading environments and fueling fears about going to shelters. Repeated exposure to such crises can tax individuals? emotional states, leading to difficulties in functioning and decision making over time. The important theoretical and practical question is: ?How do people make proactive decisions regarding the threat of a hurricane in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic??<br/><br/>The research team conducts a prospective, longitudinal, epidemiological study of residents (n=1,683) from Texas and Florida, for whom the team has data on their exposure, behavior, and response to previous hurricanes. Participants are members of Ipsos?s KnowledgePanel, and complete two surveys: one at the beginning of the 2020 hurricane season and at the height of the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic and the second after the threat of a major land-falling Category 3, 4, or 5 hurricane. The researchers assess participants? crisis exposure, their threat perceptions, their self- and response-efficacy, their emotional responses and their engagement in health protective behaviors as relevant to COVID-19 and to hurricanes. Moreover, the team uses publicly available datasets to create geocoded variables that link participant location to objective indicators of disaster exposure to both COVID-19 (e.g., deaths per 10,000, daily cases) and the physical parameters of hurricanes (e.g., inundation flooding, wind speed, air temperature). This project examines individual?s response to repeated exposure to hurricanes in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, using pre-COVID, prospectively collected data, objective markers of exposure, and a longitudinal design. The findings are useful to policymakers, service providers, educators, and members of the media to communicate messages and design interventions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027513 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: The Impact of COVID-19 on Norms, Risk-taking, Information, and Trust | SES | Economics, Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 05/01/2020 | 04/29/2020 | Tanya Rosenblat | MI | University of Michigan Ann Arbor | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $37,927.00 | Erin Lea Krupka | [email protected] | 3003 South State St. Room 1062 | Ann Arbor | MI | 481091274 | 7347636438 | SBE | 1320, 1321 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has hit countries around the world hard and is likely to have both short-run and long-run impacts on health behaviors, social norms, and trust in government and other organizations. In the short run, governments and health organizations provide extensive information and recommend behavior to avoid contracting the disease and spreading it to others. This research involves surveys to figure out whether and to what extent people follow recommendations and change behavior. Because the research team has been following a sample of university students for several years, the team already knows a lot about them, and this facilitates an understanding of variation in compliance with recommendations. For example, risk-tolerance and trust in organizations are likely to matter. The team is exploring how people process information about the virus, and how that affects their beliefs about the risks to themselves and others. The researchers also are examining the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on social norms, and how those change over time. The second wave of the study looks for longer run impacts. The results of this study will be useful in shaping future policies and communications about health risks, especially during epidemics and other health crises.<br/> <br/>The researchers make use of previous samples of subjects to test the impact of COVID-19 information and recommendations on behavior, social norms, trust in each other and institutions, and risk-tolerance. They have four areas of study. The first is how how people process ?noisy? information in the context of COVID-19. Prior research by a team member has shown that some individuals tend to misunderstand such information to their benefit. The teams adapt the methodology and protocol of the prior work to examine how individuals interpret COVID-19 information, and how this affects their beliefs about their own vulnerabilities. Second, the team studies the impact of COVID-19 on norms of behavior, including those directly related to the virus (social distancing, hand-washing), as well as norms of trust, sharing and in-group favoritism that may be shifting or newly emerging in response to COVID19. Prior work by a team member developed a methodology for eliciting social norms, and has shown that norms evolve in response to social influence. Third, they explore the impact of COVID-19 on interpersonal trust and trust in institutions, which significantly impacts willingness to follow government and organizational recommendations. Prior work by team members used incentivized games and surveys to study trust and reciprocity in natural disaster settings. Finally, they look at risk perception and risk taking related to COVID-19. Using incentivized measures of risk tolerance, and survey measures of domain-specific risk perceptions and behavior, the team explores the relationship between risk aversion and behavior, but also how the advent of COVID-19 has changed preferences for risk-taking. In these ways prior knowledge about the subjects provides an opportunity to study the impact of a national health catastrophe on information processing, social norms, trust and reciprocity and risk-taking.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027548 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: The Impact of COVID-19 on Norms, Risk-taking, Information, and Trust | SES | Economics, Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 05/01/2020 | 04/29/2020 | Catherine Eckel | TX | Texas A&M University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $52,499.00 | [email protected] | 400 Harvey Mitchell Pkwy South | College Station | TX | 778454375 | 9798626777 | SBE | 1320, 1321 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has hit countries around the world hard and is likely to have both short-run and long-run impacts on health behaviors, social norms, and trust in government and other organizations. In the short run, governments and health organizations provide extensive information and recommend behavior to avoid contracting the disease and spreading it to others. This research involves surveys to figure out whether and to what extent people follow recommendations and change behavior. Because the research team has been following a sample of university students for several years, the team already knows a lot about them, and this facilitates an understanding of variation in compliance with recommendations. For example, risk-tolerance and trust in organizations are likely to matter. The team is exploring how people process information about the virus, and how that affects their beliefs about the risks to themselves and others. The researchers also are examining the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on social norms, and how those change over time. The second wave of the study looks for longer run impacts. The results of this study will be useful in shaping future policies and communications about health risks, especially during epidemics and other health crises.<br/> <br/>The researchers make use of previous samples of subjects to test the impact of COVID-19 information and recommendations on behavior, social norms, trust in each other and institutions, and risk-tolerance. They have four areas of study. The first is how people process ?noisy? information in the context of COVID-19. Prior research by a team member has shown that some individuals tend to misunderstand such information to their benefit. The teams adapt the methodology and protocol of the prior work to examine how individuals interpret COVID-19 information, and how this affects their beliefs about their own vulnerabilities. Second, the team studies the impact of COVID-19 on norms of behavior, including those directly related to the virus (social distancing, hand-washing), as well as norms of trust, sharing and in-group favoritism that may be shifting or newly emerging in response to COVID19. Prior work by a team member developed a methodology for eliciting social norms, and has shown that norms evolve in response to social influence. Third, they explore the impact of COVID-19 on interpersonal trust and trust in institutions, which significantly impacts willingness to follow government and organizational recommendations. Prior work by team members used incentivized games and surveys to study trust and reciprocity in natural disaster settings. Finally, they look at risk perception and risk taking related to COVID-19. Using incentivized measures of risk tolerance, and survey measures of domain-specific risk perceptions and behavior, the team explores the relationship between risk aversion and behavior, but also how the advent of COVID-19 has changed preferences for risk-taking. In these ways prior knowledge about the subjects provides an opportunity to study the impact of a national health catastrophe on information processing, social norms, trust and reciprocity and risk-taking.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2031652 | RAPID: Evolutionary Nutritional Adaptations and COVID-19 Risk among Healthcare Workers | BCS | Biological Anthropology | 05/01/2020 | 05/14/2020 | Katherine Wander | NY | SUNY at Binghamton | Standard Grant | Rebecca Ferrell | 04/30/2021 | $200,000.00 | [email protected] | 4400 VESTAL PKWY E | BINGHAMTON | NY | 139026000 | 6077776136 | SBE | 1392 | 096Z, 1392, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | This RAPID project will examine coronavirus (COVID-19) disease risk from an evolutionary perspective, focusing on the intersection between nutrition and infectious disease. Leveraging the infrastructure of an existing NSF-funded project, the researchers will test two nutritional hypotheses, that mild iron deficiency decreases COVID-19 risk and that obesity increases this risk. Evidence suggests that mild iron deficiency may serve as a nutritional adaptation to reduce infectious disease risk in the context of an evolutionary ?arms race? between human host and infectious agents. Whether mild iron deficiency is protective against COVID-19 is unknown, as the virus does not have a long history of adaptation to humans. Evidence also suggests that obesity may be a later-life consequence of an early-life adaptation to conserve energy in environments of under-nutrition. In such cases, immune system development may also be set on a more energy-conserving track, which might increase risk of infectious disease. The project focuses on healthcare workers because they are at particularly high risk for emerging infectious diseases, including COVID-19, particularly as healthcare systems become strained. The project will advance fundamental understanding of the complex intersection between nutrition and infectious disease, particularly with regard to emerging infectious diseases. The research findings may inform public health efforts to protect healthcare workers and the public against COVID-19.<br/><br/>The researchers will evaluate the impact of iron status and obesity on COVID-19 risk among healthcare workers as COVID-19 admissions increase dramatically in their hospital. Participating healthcare workers (physicians, nurses, and support staff) will be evaluated at the outset for iron deficiency, anemia, and obesity. COVID-19 immunity (indicating past infection) will be assessed at the outset, and then participants will be monitored weekly for COVID-19 virus DNA (indicating current infection) and COVID-19 symptoms or hospitalization. The impact of iron deficiency and obesity on the probability that health care workers contract COVID-19 (and the probability they experience severe COVID-19 outcomes of hospitalization or death) will be evaluated, controlling for confounding variables (including socioeconomic status, healthcare role and procedures performed, patient care load, and co-morbid chronic conditions).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027556 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: The Impact of COVID-19 on Norms, Risk-taking, Information, and Trust | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 05/01/2020 | 04/29/2020 | Rick Wilson | TX | William Marsh Rice University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $109,367.00 | [email protected] | 6100 MAIN ST | Houston | TX | 770051827 | 7133484820 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has hit countries around the world hard and is likely to have both short-run and long-run impacts on health behaviors, social norms, and trust in government and other organizations. In the short run, governments and health organizations provide extensive information and recommend behavior to avoid contracting the disease and spreading it to others. This research involves surveys to figure out whether and to what extent people follow recommendations and change behavior. Because the research team has been following a sample of university students for several years, the team already knows a lot about them, and this facilitates an understanding of variation in compliance with recommendations. For example, risk-tolerance and trust in organizations are likely to matter. The team is exploring how people process information about the virus, and how that affects their beliefs about the risks to themselves and others. The researchers also are examining the impact of the COVID-19 outbreak on social norms, and how those change over time. The second wave of the study looks for longer run impacts. The results of this study will be useful in shaping future policies and communications about health risks, especially during epidemics and other health crises.<br/> <br/>The researchers make use of previous samples of subjects to test the impact of COVID-19 information and recommendations on behavior, social norms, trust in each other and institutions, and risk-tolerance. They have four areas of study. The first is how how people process ?noisy? information in the context of COVID-19. Prior research by a team member has shown that some individuals tend to misunderstand such information to their benefit. The teams adapt the methodology and protocol of the prior work to examine how individuals interpret COVID-19 information, and how this affects their beliefs about their own vulnerabilities. Second, the team studies the impact of COVID-19 on norms of behavior, including those directly related to the virus (social distancing, hand-washing), as well as norms of trust, sharing and in-group favoritism that may be shifting or newly emerging in response to COVID19. Prior work by a team member developed a methodology for eliciting social norms, and has shown that norms evolve in response to social influence. Third, they explore the impact of COVID-19 on interpersonal trust and trust in institutions, which significantly impacts willingness to follow government and organizational recommendations. Prior work by team members used incentivized games and surveys to study trust and reciprocity in natural disaster settings. Finally, they look at risk perception and risk taking related to COVID-19. Using incentivized measures of risk tolerance, and survey measures of domain-specific risk perceptions and behavior, the team explores the relationship between risk aversion and behavior, but also how the advent of COVID-19 has changed preferences for risk-taking. In these ways prior knowledge about the subjects provides an opportunity to study the impact of a national health catastrophe on information processing, social norms, trust and reciprocity and risk-taking.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028576 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Understanding At-Risk Adolescents' and Parents' Daily Experiences During COVID-19 | SES | Law & Science | 05/01/2020 | 04/28/2020 | Caitlin Cavanagh | MI | Michigan State University | Standard Grant | Mark Hurwitz | 04/30/2021 | $15,907.00 | [email protected] | Office of Sponsored Programs | East Lansing | MI | 488242600 | 5173555040 | SBE | 128Y | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | While the COVID-19 pandemic has far-reaching effects on communities and individuals, its impact on at-risk youth may be particularly pervasive and distinct. This RAPID project will study how at-risk adolescents and their parents experience COVID-19 in the initial time period following the novel coronavirus pandemic. The research will compare adolescents? sleep, social skills, social relationship quality, stress, mood, substance use, mental health symptoms, physical health, psychosocial development, externalizing behavior, and delinquency across the COVID-19 outbreak. The project also will examine whether juvenile incarceration exacerbates the potential impact of COVID-19 on youth outcomes. <br/><br/>The project will engage in a longitudinal study of at-risk (justice-involved, low-SES) adolescents to address how adolescent-parent dyads respond to and are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This research will use multiple methods, including self-report, collateral report, official records from the partnering department of probation, electronic daily diary reports, and actigraph technology, to assess changes in adolescents? and parents? functioning on a variety of outcomes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings will evince physical and mental health risks in response to the pandemic among at-risk youth. As well, the research will provide best practices for juvenile detention facilities and departments of probation in times of crises to ensure that youth continue to receive important rehabilitative services while maintaining the health and safety of youth, legal actors, and community members. Results will contribute to the limited existing knowledge base on the needs, risks, and potential protective factors of a vulnerable group of youth during a global state of emergency.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2022478 | RAPID: A Longitudinal Study of Public Responses to the Coronavirus | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 03/15/2020 | 03/18/2020 | Ellen Peters | OR | University of Oregon Eugene | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 02/28/2021 | $187,351.00 | [email protected] | 5219 UNIVERSITY OF OREGON | Eugene | OR | 974035219 | 5413465131 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The coronavirus pandemic provides a rare opportunity to study public risk perceptions and risk-related behaviors in the midst of a World Health Organization Public Health Emergency of International Concern that could threaten the quality of life of a wide spectrum of Americans. Few emergencies within the United States have affected so many people. The situation is a rich opportunity because it is occurring in real-time and is highly dynamic, involving many players in our country and around the world. As a result, it allows the research team a chance to compare this health threat with other perceived disasters such as immigration, terrorism, and possible future public health emergencies. The public?s perceptions and risk-related behaviors seem likely to change over time in response to media coverage as well as actions from our own and foreign governments.<br/><br/>In one longitudinal study, the research team invites participants from Amazon Mechanical Turk to complete one survey each month for 5 months. The researchers query their risk perceptions and affective responses toward the coronavirus, frequency of discussions about the coronavirus with others, behavioral intentions towards hypothetical experimental vaccines and treatments, and support for possible policy solutions such as quarantine. The research also ascertains their intended travel plans and media exposure to the pandemic including how much they trust those sources. The team models the emotional, risk-perception, and behavioral responses of participants toward the coronavirus by using a latent variable growth curve model that examines the trajectories of variables over time. To establish causal links, the scholars also conduct a second related experiment that manipulates affect through narratives and examines its effects on risk perceptions, medical decisions, and policy decisions. Participants are assigned to a more negative or less negative condition, and mediation analysis is used to evaluate the manipulation?s effects. In these studies, theoretical links are made between risk perceptions, social amplification of risk, the affect heuristic and other functions of affect, and numeracy. There is a dynamic test of the three functions of affect by correlating current feelings over time with risk judgments, intended prevention and treatment behaviors, and support for policy options. Theoretical research on affect has not been tested in the setting of a world health emergency. This research results in deep mechanistic understanding of how emotions and media exposure influence vaccine and treatment choices as well as support for policies. Finally, the second study establishes causal links between affect and support for prevention, treatment, and policy strategies. The research tests the dynamic and causal power of the functions of affect and motivated reasoning in order to lay the groundwork for interventions for emotional responses to the coronavirus and future epidemics. The research also has important implications, including for communication methods, for other affect-rich decisions faced by the public and policy makers.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029610 | RAPID: Measuring Information Consumption and Beliefs During the Covid-19 Pandemic. | SES | COVID-19 Research, Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace | 06/01/2020 | 06/09/2020 | Joshua Tucker | NY | New York University | Standard Grant | Sara Kiesler | 02/28/2021 | $199,596.00 | Jonathan Nagler, Richard Bonneau | [email protected] | 70 WASHINGTON SQUARE S | NEW YORK | NY | 100121019 | 2129982121 | SBE | 158Y, 8060 | 025Z, 065Z, 075Z, 096Z, 7434, 7914 | $0.00 | In recent months, the global COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a surge in pandemic-related false information, exposing shortcomings in the diffusion of high quality information through online networks and in our understanding of who is most susceptible to false and misleading information during times of crisis. Important questions remain about who is able to discriminate low-quality information from high-quality information related to COVID-19 and who is most vulnerable to low-quality information during the pandemic. This project investigates susceptibility to false and misleading information both in the time of, and related to, the COVID-19 pandemic. As government agencies, civic organizations, and for-profit companies work together to combat coronavirus-related false information, an understanding of who is most likely to believe false information ? and mistrust true information ? is necessary for crafting and distributing targeted public health communications. <br/><br/>Social and behavioral literature offer competing insights into how the current epidemic might impact people?s ability to evaluate the veracity of information. This project will test a series of theoretically informed hypotheses about why we might expect people?s ability to correctly identify the veracity of information to change in the time of COVID-19, and why we might expect people?s ability to discern the veracity of COVID-19 related information to differ from their ability to ascertain the veracity of non-Covid-19 related information. By sourcing real time news articles to crowds of ordinary citizens as well as professional fact checkers over a multi-month period, this project will investigate the individual-level determinants of susceptibility to false information in real time, whether ordinary citizens can be employed to crowdsource the labeling of high- and low-quality information, and whether crowdsourced fact-checking can reduce the prevalence of false information in the information ecosystem.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030593 | RAPID: Online Social Networks, Relationships, and COVID-19 | SES | Sociology | 05/15/2020 | 05/11/2020 | Michael Rosenfeld | CA | Stanford University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $196,830.00 | [email protected] | 450 Jane Stanford Way | Stanford | CA | 943052004 | 6507232300 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The unique situation of a majority of Americans called upon to shelter in place during the COVID-19 pandemic has created society-wide social distancing in the U.S. for the first time since the Spanish influenza pandemic of 1918. How will social distancing affect marriages and other romantic relationships? This project will analyze couple stability or instability under conditions of extraordinary stress. We know that the coronavirus pandemic will have serious and potentially devastating short term impacts on health, mortality, employment, and economic production. It is possible, however, that social life and social relations may prove more resilient during the crisis than people would ordinarily expect. An understanding of the resilience of social relationships under extraordinary stress will provide the public with more confidence that future crises can be overcome. As family and relationship satisfaction is a key contributor to general well-being and low mortality, this study seeks to understand the ability of Americans to survive the pandemic with their relationships intact, thus contributing to health and well-being of the U. S. population.<br/><br/>We know very little about the extent to which social relationships can endure during a crisis that entails sustained social distancing. This project will field two nationally representative follow-up surveys to approximately 1600 American adults. The first follow-up survey will take place during the COVID-19 shelter-in-place period. The second follow-up will be fielded once the shelter-in-place orders have been substantially lifted. Both surveys will longitudinally follow subjects and relationships first identified in the How Couples Meet and Stay Together (HCMST) 2017 survey. The resulting dataset will have measures of couple satisfaction, couple stability and breakup, couple co-residence, income, employment, online social network use, and relationship history for the same set of subjects from before, during, and after the COVID-19 lock down. The project will analyze transitions to breakup, transitions to cohabitation, and transitions to marriage using multivariable event history methods. The different state prevalence of COVID-19 cases and the variable state responses to the pandemic will represent an important natural experiment for the social effects of a lock down policy. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories of relationship transition involving marriage, cohabitation, and partnering, as well as relationship satisfaction.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028534 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Understanding At-Risk Adolescents' and Parents' Daily Experiences During COVID-19 | SES | 05/01/2020 | 04/28/2020 | April Thomas | TX | University of Texas at El Paso | Standard Grant | Mark Hurwitz | 04/30/2021 | $98,435.00 | [email protected] | ADMIN BLDG RM 209 | El Paso | TX | 799680001 | 9157475680 | SBE | 128y | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | While the COVID-19 pandemic has far-reaching effects on communities and individuals, its impact on at-risk youth may be particularly pervasive and distinct. This RAPID project will study how at-risk adolescents and their parents experience COVID-19 in the initial time period following the novel coronavirus pandemic. The research will compare adolescents? sleep, social skills, social relationship quality, stress, mood, substance use, mental health symptoms, physical health, psychosocial development, externalizing behavior, and delinquency across the COVID-19 outbreak. The project also will examine whether juvenile incarceration exacerbates the potential impact of COVID-19 on youth outcomes. <br/><br/>The project will engage in a longitudinal study of at-risk (justice-involved, low-SES) adolescents to address how adolescent-parent dyads respond to and are affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. This research will use multiple methods, including self-report, collateral report, official records from the partnering department of probation, electronic daily diary reports, and actigraph technology, to assess changes in adolescents? and parents? functioning on a variety of outcomes in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings will evince physical and mental health risks in response to the pandemic among at-risk youth. As well, the research will provide best practices for juvenile detention facilities and departments of probation in times of crises to ensure that youth continue to receive important rehabilitative services while maintaining the health and safety of youth, legal actors, and community members. Results will contribute to the limited existing knowledge base on the needs, risks, and potential protective factors of a vulnerable group of youth during a global state of emergency.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |||
| 2028680 | RAPID: Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Child Development in the ABCD Cohort | BCS | Cognitive Neuroscience | 05/01/2020 | 04/17/2020 | Susan Tapert | CA | University of California-San Diego | Standard Grant | Kurt Thoroughman | 04/30/2021 | $200,000.00 | [email protected] | Office of Contract & Grant Admin | La Jolla | CA | 920930621 | 8585344896 | SBE | 1699 | 096Z, 1698, 1699, 7914 | $0.00 | The coronavirus pandemic has affected children and families worldwide. In the US, schools and closed, yet there is variability across states and cities regarding pandemic recommendation on social distancing. The situation likely affects different children in different ways, due to varying levels of familial financial impact, self or family COVID-19 illness, mental health effects of social distancing and stress, online activity, scholastic activity, adult supervision, and indirect health influences of altered physical activity, sleep, and access to nutrition. The Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development project (ABCD) is a longitudinal study of 11,878 diverse youth enrolled at ages 9-10 in 2016-2018 (birth years 2006-2009) at 21 research sites around the United States. This RAPID project will design and implement a new survey, to assess personal impact of COVID-19 on ABCD participants and families. With this new information, we can leverage existing ABCD data to examine perturbations in developmental trajectories of brain functioning, neurocognition, mental health, substance use, academic achievement, and social functioning. By immediately collecting a unique set of measures that characterize the pandemic?s effects, we can make use of the existing ABCD protocol and design in this large, diverse, national sample. Results from this study will provide substantially improved guidelines for future epidemics and pandemics, and indicate potential targets for interventions when other traumas affect children.<br/><br/>The ABCD cohort is being followed until at least age 20, with: biennial state-of-the-art neuroimaging, epigenetics/genetics, and physical activity tracking; annual cognitive testing and assessments with youth and parents on mental and physical health and development, life events and trauma exposure, culture and environment, substance use, sleep, and screen time; and biannual brief assessments of mental health and substance use. The proposed research would immediately characterize the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on each child via a youth and parent self-assessment that characterizes their personal level of family disruption, social distancing and its impact, attitudes, adherence to public health directives, and media exposure. This crisis provides a unique opportunity to make use of ABCD?s elaborate infrastructure and rigorous scientific processes to discern critical dimensions of behavior not previously envisioned. The impending severity of this unanticipated pandemic may result in significant influences on school-age youth for decades, and this RAPID will be critical to characterizing factors that protect and exacerbate its effects. This research will immediately examine COVID-19 related effects on youth, and how their practices around virus transmission and prevention vary as a function of family and social factors, external influences, and other characteristics.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027027 | RAPID: Changes in Social Attitudes and Behavior in Response to COVID-19 | BCS | Social Psychology | 04/01/2020 | 03/23/2020 | Natalie Shook | CT | University of Connecticut | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 03/31/2021 | $182,574.00 | [email protected] | 438 Whitney Road Ext. | Storrs | CT | 062691133 | 8604863622 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | For many U.S. citizens the rapidly increasing threat of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to widespread behavior change, including social distancing and self-quarantine. Determining the social and psychological factors that predict unwillingness to engage in preventative health behaviors is crucial to develop strategies for reducing widespread disease. This project identifies psychosocial factors associated with preventative behavior change, thereby highlighting who may be at greater risk of contracting and spreading COVID-19 and future infectious diseases. The research will inform interventions designed to increase preventative health behaviors that reduce pathogen transmission. The threat of COVID-19 has also altered many social attitudes, including bias toward specific groups such as people of Asian descent. This project will shed light on the long-term consequences of such social changes for policy, international relations, and individual decision making.<br/><br/>This project informs and advances basic understanding of the human Behavioral Immune System (BIS). The BIS is theorized to encompass a variety of behaviors that humans adopt to reduce disease infection, making this research particularly timely. The research tests predictions regarding how fear of contagion influences health related behaviors and social attitudes. One goal is to quantify the extent to which social behaviors and attitudes have changed in response to the COVID-19 threat. The moderating effects of individual differences (personality traits, demographics, disgust sensitivity) will also be tested. The research utilizes a novel, intensive longitudinal design that follows a large nationally representative U.S. sample for one year. Data will be collected throughout the pandemic, decreasing in frequency as the threat subsides. Online surveys will assess preventative behaviors (e.g., handwashing, social distancing), social attitudes (prejudice, dangerous worldview, social beliefs), and individual difference variables. National statistics regarding COVID-19 prevalence in each survey respondent?s locale will also be collected to determine whether changes in social attitudes and behavior parallel changes in COVID-19 threat. The project will inform current and future efforts for increasing preventative health behaviors and reducing the spread of disease.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029039 | RAPID: Coronavirus Risk Communication: How Age and Communication Format Affect Risk Perception and Behaviors | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 06/15/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Sonia Savelli | WA | University of Washington | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 05/31/2021 | $49,133.00 | Susan Joslyn | [email protected] | 4333 Brooklyn Ave NE | Seattle | WA | 981950001 | 2065434043 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | On March 11, 2020 the coronavirus officially became a global pandemic. In the United States the suggestion to practice ?social distancing? was replaced by official ?stay at home? orders from at least 30 states, and numerous counties and cities. Despite these official orders, people continued to gather in outdoor spaces and in private. Why do they do so? Are they ?risk seeking? in the sense that they understand the risk but have decided to take it anyway? Or do they misunderstand the risk of contracting the disease, becoming seriously ill, or spreading it to others? Given the complexity and variability of the information about coronavirus available to the public, misunderstandings are likely. It may be difficult for individuals to assess their own risk of contracting and/or dying from the disease, and particularly difficult to understand the risk of passing it on to others. Nonetheless, one thing is clear: older people are at a greater risk for fatality. The risk for contracting the disease, however, appears to be more evenly distributed across age groups. It is possible that people use an unconscious simplifying strategy focusing on the more dramatic and widely publicized death rates and assume that if they are younger, all risks, including those that they pose to others, are less. The first goal of this project is to assess the perceived risks associated with coronavirus across age groups and determine how risk perception impacts the decisions people make. The second goal is to design and test risk expressions that are understandable to members of the public. Thus, this project makes significant contributions to our understanding of how people make risky decisions in context, based on complex risk information, as well as to the development of communication strategies tailored for different users.<br/> <br/>Successful risk communication strategies depend upon first understanding how people process complex risk information. In the context of the coronavirus, decision makers must take into account both the risk to themselves as well as the risk to others they may infect if they contract the coronavirus. There are numerous cognitive issues associated with this process that at present are not well understood. In particular, how do people understand related but differing risk estimates? How do they use that information to make precautionary decisions that impact themselves as well as others? This project conducts a series of online studies to determine how people perceive coronavirus risks, separately and in combination, as well as how risk perception impacts their precautionary decisions. Perhaps more importantly, based on preliminary surveys, understandable risk communication expressions are developed and tested experimentally to establish causal links between information expression and risk perception, trust, and decisions. Finally, using a few relevant individual difference measures, the researchers determine whether specific abilities are necessary to process complex numeric risk expressions and whether simplified expressions are better in some cases. The results of this work provide invaluable advice with the potential to save lives. This research can inform best practices in risk communication that have important implications for communicating risks in future outbreaks. Understanding how best to communicate risks to the public and whether communication should be tailored to specific subgroups is critical to avoiding future pandemics.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029512 | RAPID:Working Parents and Childcare during the Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Pandemic | SES | Sociology | 06/01/2020 | 06/07/2020 | Mary Noonan | IA | University of Iowa | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 05/31/2021 | $66,375.00 | [email protected] | 2 GILMORE HALL | IOWA CITY | IA | 522421320 | 3193352123 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | In March 2020, most public schools and day care centers across the U.S. closed in an effort to stem the spread of COVID-19. Non-essential businesses and organizations also closed their on-site buildings, requiring many employees to work from home. Essential workers (e.g., health care providers, grocery clerks) continued working on-site. This created a unique situation in which working parents needed to find ? or provide themselves - childcare coverage for a large portion of the day for an unknown period. The purpose of this project is to examine how working parents managed the care of their children in the context of day care and school closures associated with the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. Findings from the project will inform policies for several levels of government and many businesses related to child-care provisions during extreme events, but also during economic recovery and beyond. As such project findings will provide information to support economic competitiveness, health and well-being in our society. <br/><br/><br/>How families with children manage child-care ties to issues of labor supply, which is important during the current pandemic as well as key to economic productivity generally. The project has two objectives. First, the project will collect nationally representative survey data on a sample (n=2,500) of working parents during early May 2020, approximately two months after most day care centers and schools closed. Importantly, the data will include detailed information on parents? childcare arrangements (e.g., type, hours, cost), work lives (e.g., hours worked, location of work), family lives (e.g., number of residential parents and employed parents), and time spent on core daily activities (e.g., childcare, helping children with schoolwork, leisure, sleep) both pre- and post-day care center and school closure. Married and cohabiting respondents will also be asked to report on their partners? work lives and time spent on daily activities. Second, the project will use these data to provide a rigorous understanding of how this childcare ?shock? altered working parents? daily lives. The project will use STATA to perform a variety of statistical analyses, including t-tests, correlations, and regression analyses. The project will inform sociological theories regarding the effects of family structure, gender and job requirements on household decision making, including labor supply and tradeoffs between work and family activities.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028567 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: A Comparative Study of Expertise for Policy in the COVID-19 Pandemic | SES | Science & Technology Studies | 05/01/2020 | 04/20/2020 | Stephen Hilgartner | NY | Cornell University | Standard Grant | Frederick Kronz | 04/30/2021 | $63,393.00 | [email protected] | 373 Pine Tree Road | Ithaca | NY | 148502820 | 6072555014 | SBE | 124Y | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | As policy makers work to avert catastrophic health and economic outcomes due to COVID 19, they are struggling with a difficult question: What makes expert knowledge credible, legitimate, and reliable for use in public policy? That question is especially urgent since national and regional authorities are facing scientific uncertainty and fast-moving events that cross geopolitical borders, and the need for quick action stands in tension with the need to ground policy in robust expert knowledge and convincing analysis. Ways of identifying trustworthy sources of expertise is essential, but they remain largely vested in governments with their differing institutions, research traditions, cultural commitments, and civic beliefs. The PIs will conduct a multi-sited investigation in ten regions that will capture detailed information about the COVID 19 crisis as it unfolds, and then conduct a rigorous comparative analysis to provide a better understanding of the relationship between expertise and trust, a critically important nexus for policy makers in an era of decentralized information and polarized politics. Effective dissemination of results to critical policy analysts and policy communities is key to the success of this project. To achieve this goal, the PIs will utilize the extensive connections that they and their collaborative partners have to science policymakers and national and international organizations.<br/><br/>The PIs have assembled a team of research partners, well established STS scholars in ten regions, who have agreed to participate in the project. This team will collect and analyze publications and public documents pertaining to COVID-19 policy making in each region. These materials will provide the basis for STS-based accounts of knowledge and policymaking in each region for the comparisons that are central to this project. To provide that account, they will build a basic policy timeline tracking key events and decisions in each region?s response to the pandemic. Tracking these moves will enable them to document change and analyze variations in how issues are framed and evidence is gathered. They will also collect information on uncertainties (such as scope and limitations of scientific knowledge) and controversies, with a focus on the most contentious aspect of coronavirus policy in each region. In addition, they will track carefully chosen objects as they are incorporated into policy discussions. Such objects include particularly influential epidemiological and epistemic models, widely circulated visual representations, key policy concepts, and knowledge claims about the availability, effectiveness, and future prospects of medical interventions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028724 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: The Diffusion of State Policy Responses to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus | SES | AIB-Acctble Institutions&Behav, EPSCoR Co-Funding | 05/15/2020 | 04/28/2020 | Frederick Boehmke | IA | University of Iowa | Standard Grant | Jan Leighley | 04/30/2021 | $37,528.00 | [email protected] | 2 GILMORE HALL | IOWA CITY | IA | 522421320 | 3193352123 | SBE | 120Y, 9150 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | When the 2019 novel coronavirus arrived in the United States in February and March of 2020, state governments quickly began enacting policies intended to contain and mitigate its spread. Understanding the timing and sequence of these policy choices, and those policies? eventual consequences, is critical for assessing how governments can be most effective during pandemics. This project collects data on state and local governments? responses to COVID-19, including policies related to closing schools, canceling travel, banning public gatherings, closing restaurants and bars, delaying rent payments, and rules on medical licenses. This data allows researchers to examine the factors that influence states? policy choices, whether those factors differ from the ways in which states enact policies during normal times, which policies are effective in slowing the spread and morbidity of the virus, and how states roll back policies in a manner that allows economic activity to resume while maintaining preparedness to avoid and mitigated waves of the virus. <br/><br/>This project collects data on state government responses to COVID-19 by scraping government websites daily, focusing on sites dedicated to COVID-19 and those associated with the executive branch, state legislatures, and state departments of public health. It also collects data on the number of diagnosed cases, fatalities, recoveries in the states, and mobility data that tracks geographic movements from mobile phones. The policy recommendations or decisions recorded from state government pages include decisions related to closing schools, canceling travel, banning public gatherings (and their size), closing restaurants and bars, travel quarantines, postponing elections, safe shelter orders, limiting elective medical procedures, as well as when states modify these policies; additional data is collected from official state Twitter accounts. This data allows researchers to examine the factors that influence states? policy choices, whether those factors differ from the ways in which states enact policies during normal times, which policies are effective in slowing the spread and morbidity of the virus, and how states roll back policies in a manner that allows economic activity to resume while maintaining preparedness to avoid and mitigate new waves of the virus. <br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Accountable Institutions and Behavior Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028261 | RAPID: Coping with COVID-19: Emotion Regulation Strategy Implications for Behavior, Social Outcomes, and Well-Being | BCS | Social Psychology | 04/15/2020 | 04/17/2020 | Michelle Shiota | AZ | Arizona State University | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 03/31/2021 | $58,206.00 | [email protected] | ORSPA | TEMPE | AZ | 852816011 | 4809655479 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 is producing an extraordinary set of stressors and demands. The country is facing a life-threatening health crisis and associated economic fallout. That stress is exacerbated by unexpectedness, unpredictability, contradictory and uncertain information, and low personal control. At the same time, people are asked to adopt a series of unfamiliar social distancing and hygiene behaviors in an attempt to ?flatten the curve? of the coronavirus?s spread. Enacting the CDC-recommended behaviors requires both emotion regulation and effortful self-control. Research on emotion regulation ? the ways people attempt to alter or change their own emotions ? distinguishes among several strategies such as looking for a ?silver lining? in upsetting events, reaching out for social support, intellectualizing the problem, and distraction with television and games. The coronavirus pandemic provides a unique set of circumstances in which to examine how reliance on different emotion regulation strategies predicts people?s health-related behaviors and emotional well-being given these unusual circumstances. Findings from this research will inform future public policy recommendations that encourage health-promoting behaviors in stress-related situations. <br/><br/>This research examines the extent to which daily use of 16 distinct emotion regulation strategies predicts adoption/maintenance of CDC-recommended social distancing, hygiene and healthy social engagement behaviors. The research also examines how these emotion regulation strategies influence various prosocial and antisocial behaviors, psychological well-being, and loneliness. For three weeks, participants complete a daily questionnaire measuring their use of specific emotion regulation techniques that day; every seventh day they also answer questions about their behavior (e.g., mask-wearing, avoiding social gatherings, technology-mediated socializing, donating money or supplies, hoarding), as well as loneliness, anxiety, and depression, during the previous week. Data analyses will ask which emotion regulation strategies, or combinations of strategies, predict the most desirable profile of behavioral and well-being outcomes. The research tests important emotion regulation theories and their applicability within the unique coronavirus pandemic context and has the potential to inform future stress-related intervention efforts.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028675 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: The Diffusion of State Policy Responses to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus | SES | AIB-Acctble Institutions&Behav | 05/15/2020 | 04/28/2020 | Bruce Desmarais | PA | Pennsylvania State Univ University Park | Standard Grant | Jan Leighley | 04/30/2021 | $16,417.00 | [email protected] | 110 Technology Center Building | UNIVERSITY PARK | PA | 168027000 | 8148651372 | SBE | 120Y | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | When the 2019 novel coronavirus arrived in the United States in February and March of 2020, state governments quickly began enacting policies intended to contain and mitigate its spread. Understanding the timing and sequence of these policy choices, and those policies? eventual consequences, is critical for assessing how governments can be most effective during pandemics. This project collects data on state and local governments? responses to COVID-19, including policies related to closing schools, canceling travel, banning public gatherings, closing restaurants and bars, delaying rent payments, and rules on medical licenses. This data allows researchers to examine the factors that influence states? policy choices, whether those factors differ from the ways in which states enact policies during normal times, which policies are effective in slowing the spread and morbidity of the virus, and how states roll back policies in a manner that allows economic activity to resume while maintaining preparedness to avoid and mitigated waves of the virus. <br/><br/>This project collects data on state government responses to COVID-19 by scraping government websites daily, focusing on sites dedicated to COVID-19 and those associated with the executive branch, state legislatures, and state departments of public health. It also collects data on the number of diagnosed cases, fatalities, recoveries in the states, and mobility data that tracks geographic movements from mobile phones. The policy recommendations or decisions recorded from state government pages include decisions related to closing schools, canceling travel, banning public gatherings (and their size), closing restaurants and bars, travel quarantines, postponing elections, safe shelter orders, limiting elective medical procedures, as well as when states modify these policies; additional data is collected from official state Twitter accounts. This data allows researchers to examine the factors that influence states? policy choices, whether those factors differ from the ways in which states enact policies during normal times, which policies are effective in slowing the spread and morbidity of the virus, and how states roll back policies in a manner that allows economic activity to resume while maintaining preparedness to avoid and mitigated waves of the virus. <br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Accountable Institutions and Behavior Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028674 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: The Diffusion of State Policy Responses to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus | SES | AIB-Acctble Institutions&Behav | 05/15/2020 | 04/28/2020 | Jeffrey Harden | IN | University of Notre Dame | Standard Grant | Jan Leighley | 04/30/2021 | $8,730.00 | [email protected] | 940 Grace Hall | NOTRE DAME | IN | 465565708 | 5746317432 | SBE | 120Y | 096Z, 7914, 9178 | $0.00 | When the 2019 novel coronavirus arrived in the United States in February and March of 2020, state governments quickly began enacting policies intended to contain and mitigate its spread. Understanding the timing and sequence of these policy choices, and those policies? eventual consequences, is critical for assessing how governments can be most effective during pandemics. This project collects data on state and local governments? responses to COVID-19, including policies related to closing schools, canceling travel, banning public gatherings, closing restaurants and bars, delaying rent payments, and rules on medical licenses. This data allows researchers to examine the factors that influence states? policy choices, whether those factors differ from the ways in which states enact policies during normal times, which policies are effective in slowing the spread and morbidity of the virus, and how states roll back policies in a manner that allows economic activity to resume while maintaining preparedness to avoid and mitigated waves of the virus. <br/><br/>This project collects data on state government responses to COVID-19 by scraping government websites daily, focusing on sites dedicated to COVID-19 and those associated with the executive branch, state legislatures, and state departments of public health. It also collects data on the number of diagnosed cases, fatalities, recoveries in the states, and mobility data that tracks geographic movements from mobile phones. The policy recommendations or decisions recorded from state government pages include decisions related to closing schools, canceling travel, banning public gatherings (and their size), closing restaurants and bars, travel quarantines, postponing elections, safe shelter orders, limiting elective medical procedures, as well as when states modify these policies; additional data is collected from official state Twitter accounts. This data allows researchers to examine the factors that influence states? policy choices, whether those factors differ from the ways in which states enact policies during normal times, which policies are effective in slowing the spread and morbidity of the virus, and how states roll back policies in a manner that allows economic activity to resume while maintaining preparedness to avoid and mitigated waves of the virus. <br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Accountable Institutions and Behavior Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028585 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: A Comparative Study of Expertise for Policy in the COVID-19 Pandemic | SES | Science & Technology Studies | 05/01/2020 | 04/20/2020 | Sheila Jasanoff | MA | Harvard University | Standard Grant | Frederick Kronz | 04/30/2021 | $32,211.00 | [email protected] | 1033 MASSACHUSETTS AVE | Cambridge | MA | 021385369 | 6174955501 | SBE | 124Y | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | As policy makers work to avert catastrophic health and economic outcomes due to COVID 19, they are struggling with a difficult question: What makes expert knowledge credible, legitimate, and reliable for use in public policy? That question is especially urgent since national and regional authorities are facing scientific uncertainty and fast-moving events that cross geopolitical borders, and the need for quick action stands in tension with the need to ground policy in robust expert knowledge and convincing analysis. Ways of identifying trustworthy sources of expertise is essential, but they remain largely vested in governments with their differing institutions, research traditions, cultural commitments, and civic beliefs. The PIs will conduct a multi-sited investigation in ten regions that will capture detailed information about the COVID 19 crisis as it unfolds, and then conduct a rigorous comparative analysis to provide a better understanding of the relationship between expertise and trust, a critically important nexus for policy makers in an era of decentralized information and polarized politics. Effective dissemination of results to critical policy analysts and policy communities is key to the success of this project. To achieve this goal, the PIs will utilize the extensive connections that they and their collaborative partners have to science policymakers and national and international organizations.<br/><br/>The PIs have assembled a team of research partners, well established STS scholars in ten regions, who have agreed to participate in the project. This team will collect and analyze publications and public documents pertaining to COVID-19 policy making in each region. These materials will provide the basis for STS-based accounts of knowledge and policymaking in each region for the comparisons that are central to this project. To provide that account, they will build a basic policy timeline tracking key events and decisions in each region?s response to the pandemic. Tracking these moves will enable them to document change and analyze variations in how issues are framed and evidence is gathered. They will also collect information on uncertainties (such as scope and limitations of scientific knowledge) and controversies, with a focus on the most contentious aspect of coronavirus policy in each region. In addition, they will track carefully chosen objects as they are incorporated into policy discussions. Such objects include particularly influential epidemiological and epistemic models, widely circulated visual representations, key policy concepts, and knowledge claims about the availability, effectiveness, and future prospects of medical interventions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028429 | RAPID: THE CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC: PREDICTORS AND CONSEQUENCES OF COMPLIANCE WITH SOCIAL DISTANCING RECOMMENDATIONS | SES | Sociology | 05/01/2020 | 04/20/2020 | Peggy Giordano | OH | Bowling Green State University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $200,000.00 | Monica Longmore, Wendy Manning | [email protected] | 302 Hayes Hall | Bowling Green | OH | 434030230 | 4193722481 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The need for social distancing measures implemented in the wake of the novel coronavirus pandemic is well established, but few studies have examined variability in compliance with this public health recommendation. It is particularly important to understand the social factors associated with this variability. This project builds on an ongoing longitudinal study of the life and relationship experiences of a large, diverse sample of young people interviewed first as adolescents, and subsequently interviewed multiple times as they have become adults. This provides an opportunity to interview these women and men to understand the process of navigating the guidelines, including: a) what factors predict more and less compliant responses to the social distancing guidelines; and b) what are the consequences of social distancing for emotional health, behavioral health, and relationship functioning. The findings of the project will alert researchers and policymakers to the myriad of personal and background characteristics that are associated with more or less compliance. This information will allow for the crafting of more effective public policies and messaging about social distancing, with the goal of promoting faster and more complete compliance during future pandemics. <br/><br/>Social distancing is a vital tool in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, but we know little about who complies with guidelines and who does not. This project will draw on six waves of previously collected survey data (n=1,321) from the Toledo Adolescent Relationships Study (TARS) and a new COVID-19 online survey that will be administered to all respondents. These longitudinal data provide a unique opportunity to examine precursors and consequences of variations in response to the current social distancing guidelines. The design also includes in-depth phone interviews with a subset of respondents who were compliant (n=25) and others who did not change behavior or failed to comply consistently (n=25). The qualitative component will provide help to understand compliance as a process, and develop insights about the role of social networks in either encouraging or minimizing the need to comply. In addition to assessing the role of sociodemographic characteristics, the project will analyze the effects of prior adverse childhood and adolescent experiences, economic and social uncertainties, and network embeddedness as influences on levels of compliance. The availability of previous measures of social and behavioral health and prior relationship circumstances will allow the project to determine effects of social distancing and the experience of the pandemic, controlling for prior background. The project will also examine whether consistent reports of depression at prior waves exacerbate or dampen the effect of the recent experience of social distancing. The emphasis on social determinants provides a counterpoint to approaches that conceptualize compliance with health-promoting recommendations as an individualistic, largely cognitive process, and more broadly, will contribute to the emerging science of behavior change. Findings will inform sociological theories regarding identity and symbolic interaction, as well as theories of inequality, especially within the context of extreme events.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029924 | RAPID: Work in the Time of COVID-19 | SES | Sociology | 05/15/2020 | 05/05/2020 | Alexandrea Ravenelle | NC | University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $188,928.00 | [email protected] | 104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200 | CHAPEL HILL | NC | 275991350 | 9199663411 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | Gig work, which is often conducted on platforms such as Uber, TaskRabbit, Instacart, Care.com, and Rover, is the epitome of precarious work: the work is so temporary that a 'gig' may last only a few minutes, and workers -- who are usually classified as independent contractors -- are entirely outside the social safety net of workers? compensation, social security contributions, paid leave, or health insurance. Traditionally, low-income workers have fared worse physically, psychologically, and economically in U.S. natural disasters. Also, while white collar and professional workers conduct their work remotely via Zoom, working from the relative safety of their home offices, gig and temporary workers are increasingly being called on to ensure ready access to food, medicine, and toilet paper for their middle and upper middle class work-from-home peers. And the ranks of precarious workers on the frontlines of the pandemic are only expected to grow. This project will examine the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on exacerbating the existing vulnerability of precarious and gig workers. This project will additionally examine how precarious workers in essential jobs are weighing, and addressing, the health risks of working versus the economic repercussions of unemployment, and how the pandemic, and resulting recession, may affect worker views of the desirability of freelance or gig-based work. Findings from the project will help to inform governmental policies at several levels affecting gig workers, as well as labor force participants who may be considering adoption or rejection of gig work in the 21st century. <br/><br/>The COVID-19 pandemic has challenged the working conditions of gig workers who, by definition, cannot practice social distancing when completing their tasks. This project, a mixed-methods panel study, will utilize in-depth interviews and surveys with 200 precarious and gig workers in New York City (NYC), the early epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak. Participants will include gig workers who find work via online platforms, freelance workers in creative fields, and fast food and retail workers. The first phase will be conducted between April and June 2020, a period that coincides with the expected peak of the outbreak in NYC, and will examine how workers are coping with these risks, and how the pandemic is shaping their lives and understandings of their work. Follow-up interviews and surveys will be conducted during Fall 2020, concurrent with the expected second outbreak, and will provide an opportunity to study the impact of the Pandemic Unemployment Act and economic stimulus checks on gig workers. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories regarding precarious work, job satisfaction, and job mobility. Findings will also inform theories regarding differential access to the U.S. employment social safety net that appear among gig workers, as well as between them and workers in more conventional jobs.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028091 | RAPID: Employer and Employee Behaviors, Experiences, and Perceptions of the Pandemic | SES | Economics | 05/15/2020 | 05/04/2020 | Katherine Carman | CA | Rand Corporation | Standard Grant | Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong | 04/30/2021 | $199,591.00 | Shanthi Nataraj | [email protected] | 1776 MAIN ST | Santa Monica | CA | 904013297 | 3103930411 | SBE | 1320 | 096Z, 7914, 9102 | $0.00 | This research project will collect a large, high-frequency, longitudinal data set to investigate the effects of COVID-19 on labor market outcomes, financial well-being, and mental health across the US. COVID-19 is rapidly devastating the lives of Americans. The impacts are, and will continue to be uneven, affecting financially and psychologically vulnerable individuals, working parents, and service sector workers across space. The impacts extend beyond the direct physical health effects; the consequences of school and work closures affect labor supply and demand, financial health, mental health, and the global economy. Yet, very little is known about how the pandemic is affecting people?s financial as well as mental health. The researchers will use an existing platform to collect large data sets at regular and short intervals to study the effects of the pandemic on Americans. The results of this research project will contribute to our understanding of how pandemics affect mental and financial health of the vulnerable as well as provide inputs into policies to counter the effects of the pandemic. This does not only help shorten the projected recessions and improve the wellbeing of Americans but also establishes the United States as the global leader in countering the effects of the virus.<br/><br/>This proposed research will attempt to trace the effects of the coronavirus pandemic and the policy responses on labor market outcomes, and enhance our understanding of the links between employment, working conditions, financial well-being, and mental health. The PIs will collect longitudinal survey data over short intervals using the RAND American Life Panel (ALP) platform. The project will use the variation in the impact of the COVID-19 policy response by industry, occupation, and location to: measure the impact of employment/income loss on individuals? financial well-being and mental health, investigate how working conditions mediate the effect of COVID-19 on financial well-being and mental health, study the extent to which worker routines have been disrupted, how these disruptions change over time, and examine how these disruptions affect financial well-being and mental health. The data collection of this project is superior to standard surveys which do not capture sufficient information about employers and employee behavior. A longitudinal survey that contemporaneously captures individuals? changing labor market experiences and perceptions during the pandemic is necessary for understanding the causal links among COVDI-19 and labor market outcomes, financial wellbeing, and mental health. The results of this project will contribute to our understanding of how pandemics affect mental and financial health as well as provide inputs into policies to counter the effects of the pandemic. This does not only help shorten the projected recessions and improve the wellbeing of Americans but also establishes the United States as the global leader in countering the effects of the virus.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027653 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: COVID-19, Crises, and Support for the Rule of Law | SES | Law & Science | 04/15/2020 | 04/08/2020 | Jay Krehbiel | WV | West Virginia University Research Corporation | Standard Grant | Reggie Sheehan | 03/31/2021 | $142,850.00 | [email protected] | P.O. Box 6845 | Morgantown | WV | 265066845 | 3042933998 | SBE | 128Y | 096Z, 7914, 9150 | $0.00 | The rule of law is at the foundation of modern liberal democracy. Crises like the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, however, pose a challenge to this long-standing norm that buttresses modern democracies the world over. In the midst of a crisis, individuals' support for the rule of law is tested because their fundamental concern for the health, safety, and welfare of themselves, their families, and their friends is pitted against an abstract belief that the government ?checks all the boxes? before carrying out potentially lifesaving policies. In these situations, one?s desire for decisive government action may overwhelm, and subsequently lead to a decline in, one?s commitment to abstract democratic principles like the rule of law. Consequently, evaluating how crises affect support for fundamental democratic norms is critical for understanding their impact on the health and stability of the liberal democratic order.<br/><br/>This project leverages the COVID-19 outbreak to examine this relationship and determine (a) whether governmental responses to crises affect citizens? support for the rule of law; (b) whether citizens? faith in government efforts is buttressed or undermined in response to elite and expert cues; and (c) whether citizens? attitudes change after a crisis has dissipated. Each of these theoretical aims is tied to one of three unique features of the research design, which relies upon surveys of European democracies. First, to examine the effects of governmental responses, the project will collect survey data on support for the rule of law across four Western democracies in April 2020: Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Second, an original panel survey in Germany will enable the evaluation of changes to individual-level rule of law judgments in the short, medium, and long term. Lastly, embedded survey experiments will provide causal evidence on how elite and expert cues affect both the acceptance of policies and support for key aspects of the rule of law, such as compliance with laws and support for judicial constraints on executive and legislative power. Findings from each part of the project will provide insights into the individual-level dynamics crises activate in citizens? relationship with democratic principles.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027671 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: COVID-19, Crises, and Support for the Rule of Law | SES | Law & Science | 04/15/2020 | 04/08/2020 | Michael Nelson | PA | Pennsylvania State Univ University Park | Standard Grant | Reggie Sheehan | 03/31/2021 | $24,087.00 | [email protected] | 110 Technology Center Building | UNIVERSITY PARK | PA | 168027000 | 8148651372 | SBE | 128Y | 096Z, 7914, 9150 | $0.00 | The rule of law is at the foundation of modern liberal democracy. Crises like the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, however, pose a challenge to this long-standing norm that buttresses modern democracies the world over. In the midst of a crisis, a person?s support for the rule of law is tested as their fundamental concern for the health, safety, and welfare of themselves, their families, and their friends is pitted against an abstract belief that the government ?check all the boxes? before carrying out potentially lifesaving policies. In these situations, one?s desire for decisive government action may overwhelm, and subsequently lead to a decline in, one?s commitment to abstract democratic principles like the rule of law. Consequently, evaluating how crises affect support for fundamental democratic norms is critical for understanding their impact on the health and stability of the liberal democratic order.<br/><br/>This project leverages the COVID-19 outbreak to examine this relationship and determine (a) whether governmental responses to crises affect citizens? support for the rule of law; (b) whether citizens? faith in government efforts is buttressed or undermined in response to elite and expert cues; and (c) whether citizens? attitudes change after a crisis has dissipated. Each of these theoretical aims is tied to one of three unique features of the research design, which relies upon surveys of European democracies. First, to examine the effects of governmental responses, the project will make collect survey data on support for the rule of law across four Western democracies in April 2020: Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Second, an original panel survey in Germany will enable the evaluation of changes to individual-level rule of law judgments in the short, medium, and long term. Lastly, embedded survey experiments will provide causal evidence on how elite and expert cues affect both the acceptance of policies and support for key aspects of the rule of law like compliance with laws and support for judicial constraints on executive and legislative power. Findings from each part of the project will provide insights into the individual-level dynamics crises activate in citizens? relationship with democratic principles.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2031591 | RAPID: Pandemic Anxiety, Recovery, and Inequality: Evaluating Institutions and Policy in a Coronavirus Hotspot | SES | AIB-Acctble Institutions&Behav, EPSCoR Co-Funding | 06/01/2020 | 06/07/2020 | Michael Henderson | LA | Louisiana State University | Standard Grant | Jan Leighley | 05/31/2021 | $138,613.00 | Martin Johnson | [email protected] | 202 Himes Hall | Baton Rouge | LA | 708032701 | 2255782760 | SBE | 120Y, 9150 | 096Z, 7914, 9150 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic simultaneously unleashed health and economic threats on American society, each of which produces anxiety. Ultimately, recovery will require reintegration into the social and economic fabric after periods defined by quarantine and social distancing measures aimed at mitigating the spread of the virus. To what extent will experiences of anxiety in the face of these threats curb downstream recovery? The objective of this project is to understand experiences of anxiety and recovery among a representative sample of adults in Louisiana, a coronavirus hotspot whose COVID-19 mortality rate is one of the deadliest in the nation. The proposed study will also offer guidance to governing officials in how anxiety inhibits economic and health recovery even as the experiences of threat change. <br/><br/>To measure the durability of anxiety and its effects on social trust and engagement, data will be collected in a four-wave representative panel of adult Louisiana residents using YouGov. The investigators will measure respondents? exposure to the health and economic threats and their anxiety over them, as well as outcome variables including perceptions of progress of recovery; trust in institutions, leaders, and residents of their communities; civic, social, and economic activity; and support for policies aimed at mitigating threat impact or reopening the economy. The major contribution of this study will be to extend the scope of analysis from the immediate, short-run effects of anxiety to the long-run patterns by which anxiety persists and has downstream consequences for social and economic engagement, as well as deepen our understanding individual differences in how anxiety is associated with social and economic judgments.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Accountable Institutions and Behavior (AIB) program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2031703 | RAPID: A comparison of the 1918 influenza pandemic and COVID-19 in Missouri: implications for current mitigation strategies in rural versus urban locations | BCS | Biological Anthropology | 05/15/2020 | 05/12/2020 | Lisa Sattenspiel | MO | University of Missouri-Columbia | Standard Grant | Rebecca Ferrell | 04/30/2021 | $146,794.00 | Carolyn Orbann | [email protected] | 115 Business Loop 70 W | COLUMBIA | MO | 652110001 | 5738827560 | SBE | 1392 | 096Z, 1392, 7914, 9150, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | This RAPID project will compare epidemic patterns and Missouri residents? responses in the 1918 influenza pandemic to those occurring at present during the COVID-19 pandemic, with primary attention paid to urban-rural differences. The research will increase understanding of how life situations in urban versus rural settings affect epidemic disease experiences and will provide knowledge of important community characteristics that put residents at greater risk during the current pandemic. The study will also shed light on which characteristics of a region have been stable over long periods of time and which are aspects of modern life and perhaps more malleable. The research is therefore time-sensitive because the investigators will expeditiously communicate project findings relevant to the current pandemic to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. In addition, this project will provide student training in data collection and first-hand experience in conducting research to help deal with an unforeseen and serious public health event. <br/><br/>A new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, to which humans possess little underlying immunity, has been spreading throughout the globe. In this pandemic setting, rural regions may face challenges that are not present in urban areas. As there is currently no vaccine, it is critical to devise effective strategies quickly, to protect rural regions from echo waves of the virus that may circulate over the next few years. The world experienced a similar situation in 1918-19 when a new, lethal strain of influenza began to infect humans. Although there are significant differences between these two pandemics, the viruses have similar modes of transmission and overall impacts on human communities. Understanding the experiences and responses of rural citizens to these two pandemics provides important insights that may lead to new public health strategies that are more tailored to the needs of rural residents during major disease outbreaks. The project involves in-depth comparative analysis of mortality and morbidity patterns during the 1918 influenza pandemic and the present COVID-19 pandemic in the state of Missouri. Analysis will focus on data aggregated at the county level and will determine county characteristics (e.g., population density, number of hospitals, household composition, proximity to large urban area, ethnic composition, mobility patterns) that are associated with death and/or illness rates during the two pandemics. Historical data from the Missouri 1918 influenza pandemic will be examined to identify control strategies used in different counties during the pandemic, determine their effectiveness, and assess whether they would be of use during the present pandemic. This in turn can aid in the development of potential strategies that public health authorities can add to the arsenal already being used in rural counties.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027664 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: COVID-19, Crises, and Support for the Rule of Law | SES | Law & Science | 04/15/2020 | 04/08/2020 | Amanda Driscoll | FL | Florida State University | Standard Grant | Reggie Sheehan | 03/31/2021 | $29,876.00 | [email protected] | 874 Traditions Way, 3rd Floor | TALLAHASSEE | FL | 323064166 | 8506445260 | SBE | 128Y | 096Z, 7914, 9150 | $0.00 | The rule of law is at the foundation of modern liberal democracy. Crises like the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic, however, pose a challenge to this long-standing norm that buttresses modern democracies the world over. In the midst of a crisis, a person?s support for the rule of law is tested as their fundamental concern for the health, safety, and welfare of themselves, their families, and their friends is pitted against an abstract belief that the government ?check all the boxes? before carrying out potentially lifesaving policies. In these situations, one?s desire for decisive government action may overwhelm, and subsequently lead to a decline in, one?s commitment to abstract democratic principles like the rule of law. Consequently, evaluating how crises affect support for fundamental democratic norms is critical for understanding their impact on the health and stability of the liberal democratic order.<br/><br/>This project leverages the COVID-19 outbreak to examine this relationship and determine (a) whether governmental responses to crises affect citizens? support for the rule of law; (b) whether citizens? faith in government efforts is buttressed or undermined in response to elite and expert cues; and (c) whether citizens? attitudes change after a crisis has dissipated. Each of these theoretical aims is tied to one of three unique features of the research design, which relies upon surveys of European democracies. First, to examine the effects of governmental responses, the project will make collect survey data on support for the rule of law across four Western democracies in April 2020: Germany, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Second, an original panel survey in Germany will enable the evaluation of changes to individual-level rule of law judgments in the short, medium, and long term. Lastly, embedded survey experiments will provide causal evidence on how elite and expert cues affect both the acceptance of policies and support for key aspects of the rule of law like compliance with laws and support for judicial constraints on executive and legislative power. Findings from each part of the project will provide insights into the individual-level dynamics crises activate in citizens? relationship with democratic principles.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027405 | RAPID: How uncertainty about risk and conflicting messages affect preventive behaviors against Covid-19 | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 05/01/2020 | 05/01/2020 | Julie Downs | PA | Carnegie-Mellon University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $199,729.00 | Gretchen Chapman, Stephen Broomell | [email protected] | 5000 Forbes Avenue | PITTSBURGH | PA | 152133815 | 4122688746 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | The coronavirus outbreak poses a major challenge for our health system. As people become sick and need medical care, they need resources like hospital beds and ventilators. However, if many people become sick in a short period of time, there will not be enough of these resources to care for them all. If we are to treat every sick person with the best possible medical care, we need to both prevent and delay new infections. We know from history and medical science that public behavior is the most important tool for this prevention. But for the public to help, people need to know what to do and how to do it, as well as to understand why these behaviors are so important. People take their cues from those around them in making sense of new, uncertain situations. This makes it important to make sure that everybody is getting good information about the risks of Covid-19 and how to prevent it. Official messages need to reflect scientific knowledge, and myths that pop up in communities need to be addressed so that people can understand and debunk them. The research team has been studying how people are thinking about the risks of Covid-19, and what they are doing to protect themselves and their community. One key finding from that work is that when people are uncertain about the risk, they are more likely to rely on what other people are doing to determine what the right thing to do is. The team also finds that people's main concerns about social distancing are that they are worried about getting by without a paycheck and how they will get food and meet other urgent needs. This project involves surveys and experiments to better understand these concerns and provide new knowledge to help guide policy action. First, we need to know whether helping people understand how to prevent infection will actually lead them to protect themselves. The experiments test and identify how best to help people understand, especially for those who are not fully engaging in social distancing. Then, over the next few months as the situation changes, the research team develops messages to help people understand what is happening and how their behavior can help protect themselves and the people around them.<br/><br/>In early March 2020, the researchers conducted an exploratory survey to determine whether some protective behaviors were reported at low levels and identify predictors of poor compliance. The research showed that compliance with the more extreme social distancing behaviors appear to be dependent on social norms, with rates being lower when other people do not seem to be engaging in such distancing. Furthermore, people appear to rely on those norms particularly when they experience more uncertainty about the risk. The findings also were that concerns about losing pay and disruption of personal plans are most predictive of anticipated failures to comply with orders to stay home, followed by the need to shop for food and other urgent needs. These findings suggest that a policy approach aimed at getting people through financial and logistical hardship is critically important and has the potential to be highly impactful. The new research explores more deeply these concerns and how they relate to protective actions. The first phase establishes which predictive factors have causal influence on protective behaviors. The second phase is an assessment of how well protective behaviors are being performed and identifies causally predictive factors identified in the first phase for a nationally representative sample (oversampling high-risk geographical locations). In the third phase, iteratively for each causal factor, the team develops and pilots messages in a test-bed environment, testing final messages with an experimental design in a national sample (repeating regularly as the environment and pandemic evolve), and following up on a subset of critical messages with a 3-day retest to assess behavior change. Finally, again iteratively for each effective message, the team disseminates recommended messages along with the rationale for why they are useful and how they are understood to work. The team shares its findings with its established network of public health officials.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030845 | RAPID: Exploring the Cyber Behaviors of Temporary Work-From-Home (TWFH) Employees | SES | COVID-19 Research, Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace | 06/01/2020 | 06/08/2020 | Michael Posey | FL | The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees | Standard Grant | Sara Kiesler | 05/31/2021 | $170,249.00 | Mindy Shoss | [email protected] | 4000 CNTRL FLORIDA BLVD | Orlando | FL | 328168005 | 4078230387 | SBE | 158Y, 8060 | 025Z, 065Z, 096Z, 7434, 7914, 9102 | $0.00 | Responses to the novel coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) have led to a substantial number of employees working from home in an ad-hoc emergency fashion. This project examines the ramifications of temporary work-from-home environments for organizational cybersecurity. The project team is assessing organizational methods used to help secure temporary remote locations, examining the new workplace characteristics that employees encounter, and determining whether and how these factors influence the security of sensitive organizational data, information, and digital systems. Project findings will allow the research team to develop actionable recommendations to organizational leaders who rely on temporary, remote work locations for their employees in times of substantial uncertainty. This project will help guide the design and implementation of organizational cybersecurity policies, procedures, and other efforts relied upon during significant future crises?times when cybersecurity threats tend to be elevated and employees dispersed throughout numerous locations.<br/><br/>The research team is using a mixed methods approach to evaluate possible responses by employees to the unexpected work conditions surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. These employees might exhibit increased resilience to cybersecurity risks due to the cooperative motivations that often follow disasters. On the other hand, stressors associated with working at home might lead employees to pay less attention to cybersecurity demands and to engage in shortcuts and workarounds. Thus, the project investigates the extent that organizational responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and the crisis lead individuals to protect their environments and their organizations from cybersecurity threats or by contrast to engage in behavior that constitutes threats to sensitive organizational assets and practices. In-depth semi-structured interviews and experience sampling assessments are performed using several samples of employees working at home. Daily surveys will be completed by a sample of participants over a two-week period to determine fluctuations in employee attitudes, emotions, and behaviors.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2020597 | RAPID Proposal: Psychological distance and risk perception related to the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) outbreak | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 03/15/2020 | 03/18/2020 | Janet Yang | NY | SUNY at Buffalo | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 02/28/2021 | $197,402.00 | [email protected] | 520 Lee Entrance | Buffalo | NY | 142282567 | 7166452634 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | This project assesses the American public?s perception of the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak that originated from Wuhan, China. The focus of this research is to examine whether Americans? perception of the root cause of the outbreak, as well as whether they believe the outbreak is a distant issue for most Americans, will determine their risk perception and emotional responses to the outbreak. Further, this project examines the extent to which risk perception and emotions influence whether Americans seek information about this issue, share information with others, and support public health policies including international cooperation. The proposed research advances risk communication research, as well as enhances our understanding of strategic messaging design to benefit public health, prosperity and welfare.<br/><br/>The proposed research is an experimental survey to assess 1) how psychological distance (especially spatial and social distance) and causal attribution influence the U.S. public?s risk perception surrounding the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak; 2) how mental construal of the outbreak determines Americans? emotional responses to the outbreak; 3) how risk perception and emotional responses influence risk communication behaviors and public support for U.S. involvement in providing aid; and 4) whether cultural cognition moderates these relationships. The research involves a survey, based on a nationally representative sample of 1,000 participants, who are randomly assigned to four experimental conditions. Psychological distance and causal attributions are the main experimental factors with cultural cognition as the primary moderator, while risk perception, emotional responses, communication behaviors, and support for U.S. response effort are the outcome variables. The outbreak provides a unique context to study public risk perception and risk communication behaviors. Although only a small number cases have been confirmed in the U.S. at the inception of the research, there is heightened media attention and the U.S. government has issued a travel ban to all foreign nationals who have been to mainland China. It is possible that social cognitive mechanisms, such as psychological distance, causal attribution, and cultural cognition will synergistically influence public risk perceptions and subsequent communication behaviors and support for public health policies. Exploring these mechanisms and their respective impacts can help us understand how to communicate better about a major disease outbreak in an interconnected world.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027620 | RAPID: THE PSYCHOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF PANIC BUYING DURING THE COVID-19 OUTBREAK AND HOW TO MITIGATE THEM | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, EPSCoR Co-Funding | 05/01/2020 | 05/01/2020 | Mehdi Hossain | RI | University of Rhode Island | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $135,825.00 | [email protected] | RESEARCH OFFICE | KINGSTON | RI | 028811967 | 4018742635 | SBE | 1321, 9150 | 096Z, 7914, 9150, 9179 | $0.00 | The coronavirus pandemic has influenced people?s marketplace behaviors. Panic buying has been evident among consumers all over the world, incurring substantial costs to the buyer, the society, and the marketplace. Hoarding and stockpiling creates shortage of supplies for necessities, depriving others who might be needing them the most in the situation (e.g., health care providers, older individuals), and artificially hikes price levels. For the panic buyer, this behavior creates inventory management problems. This research focuses on the consumer psychology of panic buying and how the media, policy makers, government officials and retailers can frame their communication with the general public at times of such unprecedented events, aiming to mitigate the psychological triggers of this behavior. The current research illuminates the psychological remedies of panic buying, and prescribes actions that may protect the supply chain, ensure equal distribution of necessities among the population, control price hikes of necessities, and extend consumers? financial well-being in pandemic like situations.<br/> <br/>This research is two interrelated studies aimed at tackling the problem of panic buying owing to the COVID-19 pandemic. The first study explores the underlying psychological processes of panic buying during the ongoing crisis. Through an online survey, a U.S. national pool of 2750 respondents provides measures of relevant psychological factors and proneness to panic buying. The second study uses findings from the first study to develop communication frames and materials. The researcher then randomly assigns respondents to different conditions and evaluates the efficacy of the different conditions to reducing panic buying and hoarding.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by DRMS and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027296 | RAPID: Investigating the Causal Propositions of the Affect Heuristic During an Ongoing Pandemic | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 05/01/2020 | 04/30/2020 | William Burns | OR | Decision Science Research Institute | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $199,997.00 | Paul Slovic, Marcus Mayorga | [email protected] | 1201 Oak Street, Suite 200 | Eugene | OR | 974013515 | 5414852400 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The unprecedented pandemic wrought by the coronavirus has infected many people around the world, triggering anxiety and panic and disrupting all facets of life. In addition to the growing numbers of cases and deaths, the social, economic, and political impacts are vast. Lacking a vaccine or effective therapeutic cure, the front line of defense against the spread of this disease depends on human behavior, following guidelines about social distancing, sanitation, and other recommended measures. There is great uncertainty about the future trajectory of the disease and its impacts. Against the backdrop of this catastrophic threat this research forecasts public perceptions of risks, including hopes and fears, using a new theoretical model based on what is known as ?the affect heuristic.? The researchers build and test this model in two ways that increase understanding of how positive and negative emotions, influenced by daily news reports, interact to guide behavior. Understanding the changing reactions to news information not only advances understanding of risk perception, but enables the creation of effective risk communication messages. The research provides insight into the behaviors that will determine the course of the disease and can help to mitigate its harmful social and economic impacts.<br/><br/>Studies have consistently found an inverse relationship between judgments of benefits and risks associated with a wide array of hazards. This relationship occurs because perceptions of risk and benefit are derived in opposite ways from an affective sense of the importance of the risk. This process became known as the affect heuristic. The causal dynamics that underlie the relationship between affect and perceived risks and benefits remain poorly understood. This project does three things: (1a) constructs a system dynamics simulation model that explicitly incorporates the informational feedback loops that allow affect to play this moderating role and (1b) simulates the trajectories of affect and perceived risk and benefits as the coronavirus pandemic unfolds, (2) constructs a hybrid agent-based model that incorporates findings from the systems model but allows for heterogeneity (e.g., different levels of medical vulnerability) among agents, and (3) conducts a longitudinal national panel to survey the public?s response to the pandemic over a 6 month period. These data together with data from an independent panel are be used to estimate and validate both models. This project has broad impacts because understanding how we manage our perceptions of risk and benefits is critical to the decisions we make and our behaviors. The project helps to explain this entanglement and predict public reaction to the current pandemic and, potentially, to other crises.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030160 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: A "Citizen Science" approach to examine COVID-19 social distancing effects on children's language development | BCS | Sci of Lrng & Augmented Intel | 06/01/2020 | 06/09/2020 | Yi Ting Huang | MD | University of Maryland College Park | Standard Grant | Soo-Siang Lim | 05/31/2021 | $47,504.00 | [email protected] | 3112 LEE BLDG 7809 Regents Drive | COLLEGE PARK | MD | 207425141 | 3014056269 | SBE | 127Y | 059Z, 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant threat to learning and language development for large numbers of children. Such challenges are compounded for those facing social and economic adversity, factors that are associated with decreased parental interactions, child development, and school achievement. This study examines the scope and magnitude of learning impacts from COVID19 pandemic by engaging families as ?Citizen Scientists? who will track their children?s language use during the crisis. Social-distancing policies vary by state, enabling the researchers to compare how these different decisions affect children?s language development. This will help policymakers and educators make more informed decisions, both about crisis management and strategies to mitigate negative effects of crisis-related policies. More broadly, this work will make important contributions to the science of language learning, which in turn will help clinicians and educators best address the needs of children from varying demographics. Finally, by using a Citizen Science paradigm, this project establishes a conduit for science outreach and education. <br/><br/>This project will recruit thousands of ?volunteer researchers? to record data about their own family environment, parent-child conversations, and child language development using a web-based application accessible through a laptop or mobile phone. In addition to collecting survey responses, this app enables parents to make short audio recordings of their child?s speech and build a scrapbook of developing language abilities over time. When paired with comprehensive recruitment, this platform will assemble speech samples that are both broad and deep and will support more accurate models of relations between children?s learning and long- vs. short-term adversity. Additionally, the varied timing of social disruptions across locations permits both between-family and within-family comparisons of COVID-19 impacts, and yields estimates of effect sizes and modulation by race and socioeconomic status. The data will address questions of urgent societal interest, including a) how COVID-19 policies impact language-learning environments; b) how family stress changes children?s language and communication behavior; and c) what impacts the COVID-19 crisis has on developmental outcomes. Moreover, since social disruptions affect a wide demographic and are largely outside family control, this project leverages the COVID-19 crisis as an unusually clean manipulation of social and economic adversity. This avoids confounds that are persistently problematic in existing research, and will deepen theoretical insight into the factors that affect children?s language learning.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2032513 | RAPID: How social norms impact COVID-19 transmission behaviors | BCS | COVID-19 Research | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Sarah Mathew | AZ | Arizona State University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 05/31/2021 | $66,882.00 | Minhua Yan | [email protected] | ORSPA | TEMPE | AZ | 852816011 | 4809655479 | SBE | 158Y | 096Z, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | Until a vaccine is developed, behavior change is the only way to stem the transmission of COVID-19 and safely resume economic activities. Social norms ? aggregate behaviors, private preferences, judgments of behaviors, etc. ? affect individuals' likelihood of adopting behavior change and must be understood in order to model effectively the impact of behavior-based interventions on disease transmission. This project investigates how community norms and normative pressures, in conjunction with population demographic composition, government policies, and information that people receive, determine behaviors targeted by COVID-19 health interventions. The results of the research will be disseminated quickly and broadly to facilitate efforts to stem disease transmission. The research trains a U.S. based graduate student and undergraduate students. <br/><br/>The study evaluates two causal relationships: 1) how government policies and individual traits (e.g., socio-economic position, personality) cause an individual to adopt a behavior (e.g., interpersonal distance, mask wearing); and 2) how aggregate patterns at the community level cause differences in transmission patterns. Surveys will be administered in five populations, one rural with limited exposure, and four urban with differences in the control measures that have been implemented. The researchers will collect longitudinal and time-series cross-sectional survey data to document 1) how people make interpersonal interaction and personal hygiene behavioral decisions; 2) how interpersonal interaction and personal hygiene norms change in each community during the pandemic; and 3) how the prevailing norms and shifts in those norms impact COVID-19 transmission patterns.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2032312 | RAPID Collaborative: Networks and Spatial Dynamics of the US Food Supply Chain amid the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | Strengthening American Infras., Human Networks & Data Sci Res | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Jeffrey Johnson | FL | University of Florida | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 05/31/2021 | $50,696.00 | [email protected] | 1 UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA | GAINESVILLE | FL | 326112002 | 3523923516 | SBE | 145Y, 147Y | 096Z, 1352, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | Security and safety in food supply chains is critical to preventing the transmission of COVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that the US food-supply system is vulnerable. As the pandemic forced restaurants to close, or dramatically curtail operations, the news reported that farmers were discarding products because the buyers (restaurants) were no longer buying. At the same time consumers are struggling to find products in the supermarkets. Restaurant-supply networks may play a larger role in the resilience and sustainability of the US supply network than people had thought. It is clear now that these food distribution networks likely have evolved independently to maximize efficiency, not resiliency to risks such as pandemics. Recognizing this problem, and the potential impact on the economy, jobs, and national security, the US government has invested billions of dollars to buy and redistribute food that farmers were discarding. This research will pinpoint weak links in the food-supply network during the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly assessing disruptions in restaurant-supply network, which include restaurateurs, distributors, and producers. The team?s novel spatial, ethnographic, networks (SENs) approach will also advance supply chain management theory by quantifying difficult-to-reach components within supply chains. The goal is to provide actionable strategies that can identify how people can adapt and help create a more resilient and sustainable US Food System amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and avoid these disruptions in future unanticipated events. Finally, the project?s novel SENs approach will train students in research methods that can be rapidly applied to tackle unexpected changes in our global food system. <br/><br/>Supply-chain scholars are calling for new theoretical developments that account for the complexities and dynamics, and provides visibility to hidden components in supply networks. This project will bridge the gap in knowledge through spatial, ethnographically-derived, networks (SENs). A multi-phase comparative research design is employed that allows the ability to maximize the comparison potential of the analysis along key dimensions: the onset and intensity of COVID-19 and the influence of regional supply distribution over time. The overall goal is to understand what are the structural and spatial characteristics of actors? (restaurateurs?, distributors?, and farmers?) supply networks that lead to various outcomes (e.g., new business opportunities, more sustainable practices, staying in business, or closing shop). Key informant interviews will be used to design structured interviews that will be conducted at two points in time. A number of measures will be derived from these survey spatially-explicit food supply networks for key informants, including a Sourcing Diversity Index that characterizes distributor typologies, geography, and ego network measures. By capturing these disruptions at the onset, and throughout the pandemic, this project will be able to identify key areas of the food-supply network that are vulnerable, not only for this pandemic, but other global disruptions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2032422 | RAPID: Social Factors Influencing Compliance with Quarantine and Distancing in the Prevention of COVID-19 Transmission | BCS | COVID-19 Research | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Clara Han | MD | Johns Hopkins University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 05/31/2021 | $162,067.00 | Veena Das | [email protected] | 1101 E 33rd St | Baltimore | MD | 212182686 | 4439971898 | SBE | 158Y | 096Z, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | The uncertainty created by the spread of COVID-19 has resulted in a range of regulations designed to control the spread of infections. However, the economic and social consequences of such measures have differential impacts on vulnerable households already living in conditions of economic hardship and poor health. This research examines how social, economic, and health inequalities impact the capabilities of households to follow regulations that may be necessary to reduce the spread of infections. The project will explore how short-term household decision-making impacts long-term consequences for poverty, social marginality, and susceptibility to higher infection rates. The project contributes to understanding the social and culture factors that enable and inhibit compliance with regulations in the context of COVID-19; data and findings being disseminated to improve containment processes. This project also trains graduate students in collaborative work and in building a network of scholars across multiple sites that can strengthen research on responses to disaster management and implement research methods during periods of crises. <br/><br/>Through a multi-site study of household decision-making under conditions of extreme uncertainty created by the spread of COVID-19 and associated containment regulations, the research assesses the role socioeconomic factors play in achieving compliance with social distancing and quarantine requirements. It evaluates how intra-household inequalities, changes in medical infrastructure, fears of stigma and surveillance, confidence in social support, and social networks influence decisions. Eighty households across ten different sites with contrasting sub-populations and differing religious, ethnic, and racial composition will be selected for analysis. By taking the unit of analysis to be the household rather than the individual, the project will uniquely contribute to the understanding of household dynamics and the disproportionate effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on household inequalities. The multi-site research design will be critical in investigating how models of containment which appear similar in theory might translate into very different modes of implementation in different social and political contexts.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028409 | RAPID: The Roles of Organizational Contextual Factors in Worker Reactions to COVID-19 | SES | SoO-Science Of Organizations | 05/15/2020 | 05/07/2020 | Chu-Hsiang Chang | MI | Michigan State University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $71,098.00 | Ruodan Shao | [email protected] | Office of Sponsored Programs | East Lansing | MI | 488242600 | 5173555040 | SBE | 8031 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The outbreak of COVID-19 has caused great concerns worldwide. COVID-19 directly affects the physical, financial, and psychological well-being of those who live in close proximity to the outbreak areas. Because of its potential threat to physical health, it has widespread effects on the thought processes and behaviors of the global population. This project seeks to understand the impact of COVID-19 by examining how it affects workers? perceptions of the health-related threat, their emotional and motivational reactions towards the threat, and their downstream work-related behaviors. This project will analyze workers? anxiety and desire to make a lasting and meaningful impact to their environment as different reactions towards COVID-19. These reactions, in turn, can lead to different levels of work performance, helping behaviors, and withdrawal from the workplace. Importantly, the project will test if and how the organizational context may play an important role in encouraging effective versus dysfunctional coping among workers when facing threats related to COVID-19. Results from the project will enhance understanding of how workers react to health-related threat information, and how their productivity and well-being may be affected by the information. Results will also equip organizations with knowledge to create a context that will help employees adapt to the threat brought on by COVID-19 or other similar life-threatening crises. More broadly, this project will clarify how organizations and managers can transform negative crises and challenges into opportunities to boost workforce morale and prosocial motivation. <br/><br/>The goal of the proposed research is to understand the impact of COVID-19 among working adults within the context of the pandemic. The project conceptualizes COVID-19 as a salient mortality cue and will analyze individual employees? adaptive reflection and maladaptive anxiety as responses to this cue. The project will also analyze how reflection may be related to employees? positive coping behaviors such as productivity and helping, whereas anxiety as a maladaptive reaction may be associated with negative behaviors such as withdrawal. Finally, the project will examine the organizational contextual factors that may exacerbate or ameliorate workers? reactions towards the threat of COVID-19. The project will consider organizational health climate, ethical leadership, and corporate social responsibility practices as critical factors that may promote the adaptive reactions towards COVID-19. The project will use time-lagged, three-wave surveys to collect data from working adults; structural equation modeling and conditional indirect effect tests will be employed to evaluate research questions. Findings from the project will inform organizational theories related to those involving terror management and generativity.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030344 | RAPID: Examining Community Corrections Agencies During COVID-19 | SES | Law & Science | 05/01/2020 | 05/01/2020 | Jill Viglione | FL | The University of Central Florida Board of Trustees | Standard Grant | Mark Hurwitz | 04/30/2021 | $105,467.00 | [email protected] | 4000 CNTRL FLORIDA BLVD | Orlando | FL | 328168005 | 4078230387 | SBE | 128Y | 096Z, 7914, 9102 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has created extreme challenges for community corrections agencies across the United States, a population at a high risk for infectious diseases due to a prevalence of social, economic, and behavioral risk factors. This RAPID project will measure and track agency-level responses to prevent, contain, and respond to the COVID-19 outbreak. Additionally, this project will examine how community corrections (the largest arm of the corrections system) respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and balance public health and public safety. Consequently, this study will investigate the circumstances under which community supervision agencies alter their policies and procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic, while examining the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the physical and mental health of community supervision officers.<br/><br/>Through surveys and interviews with community supervision administrators and officers, and based on a theory of organization change, this project will take a longitudinal approach to examine how community corrections agencies adapt during the COVID-19 pandemic. These methods will enable a study of the circumstances under which community supervision agencies alter their policies and procedures during the COVID-19 pandemic. This project will produce data and research results that will provide key information on the strategies agencies use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings will aid scholarship and agency decision making in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, while informing the development of plans to protect the health and well-being of correctional staff and clients in future infectious disease events.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029373 | RAPID: Assessing and preventing detrimental impacts on literacy acquisition during COVID-19-related school closures | BCS | Perception, Action & Cognition | 04/15/2020 | 04/14/2020 | Fumiko Hoeft | CT | Haskins Laboratories, Inc. | Standard Grant | Betty Tuller | 03/31/2021 | $199,448.00 | Kenneth Pugh | [email protected] | 300 George Street | New Haven | CT | 065116610 | 2038656163 | SBE | 7252 | 059Z, 096Z, 1311, 1698, 7252, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has led to shelter-in-place and school closure in the majority of states across the U.S. Most schools are expected to be closed throughout the remaining school year, which will result in students not receiving in-person academic instruction continuously for approximately 6 months. This unprecedented closure will have profound impacts on the development of basic reading skills in the early grades, especially for those children in special education or at-risk for learning disorders where remote/online learning is more challenging. Indeed, extended periods without direct instruction, even in a typical 3-month summer vacation period can result in students losing the equivalent of one month of academic performance. A failure to support learning over the twice as long, COVID-19 closures could have dramatic educational implications. Thus, it is crucial to ask 1) Can remote-learning tools based in current research on reading strengthen key reading-related skills in the youngest learners? 2) What aspects of learning to read are amenable to remote technology? 3) Can digital technology that incorporates cutting-edge reading research in a game-based format overcome the decline in reading skills over the unprecedented length of the COVID-19 school closures?<br/><br/>One hundred educators across the U.S. and 2000 of their K-2 students, all prevented from in-person instruction as a result of COVID-19, will be enrolled in the project. Teachers will incorporate a research-supported, affordable, and technology-based reading instructional program that can be administered in the home to support the development of essential phonological and letter-sound decoding skills with instructional content identical to evidence-based reading instruction in the classroom. Children will be encouraged to play the games at home for 20 minutes per day, 5 days per week, for 12 weeks, proctored by teachers during instructional time. Standardized online reading tests will also be administered several times during the COVID-19 school closures. The research will examine critical factors that moderate reading gains with training, including onset of the training (relative to school closing), duration/intensity of practice, and individual differences in component skills at onset of the study. The research will also assess whether educational technology can serve to prevent closure-related deterioration in reading development by comparing pre- and post-testing for these children with comparable populations not enrolled in the study. Results from this investigation will allow researchers to assess factors that lead to successful learning through educational technology with minimal in-person guidance, which may guide future development and refinement of these remote learning tools. Further, the study is significant as it will not only assess the detrimental impact of COVID-19 school closures on learning to read but also provide direct means to potentially support educators and students who are in dire need of evidence-based remote instructional tools. Such knowledge can be helpful in possible future closures and can provide evidence-based guidance on how to teach students in remote areas within the U.S. where trained reading specialists are not readily available.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2031708 | RAPID: Emotional and neural influences on decision-making in the context of COVID-19 | BCS | Perception, Action & Cognition | 06/01/2020 | 06/07/2020 | Samuel McClure | AZ | Arizona State University | Standard Grant | Lawrence Gottlob | 05/31/2021 | $118,726.00 | Gene Brewer | [email protected] | ORSPA | TEMPE | AZ | 852816011 | 4809655479 | SBE | 7252 | 096Z, 7252, 7914 | $0.00 | Emotions color and shape the way people perceive the world and thus how they make decisions and form memories; and those emotional impacts in turn can depend upon specific brain structures and functions. These effects are especially consequential in the context of the emotionally charged decisions and actions needed to respond effectively to the COVID-19 pandemic. To address these issues, in combination with data on pre-pandemic behavior and brain architecture, this project will measure how emotional state during the COVID-19 pandemic alters decision-making, and how that varies with the structure of the brain's dopamine system. Improved understanding of decision making in the context of the pandemic may enable us to design new interventions and information formats that will increase preparedness and resilience. <br/><br/>The effects of emotions on decisions and memory have both been posited to depend on the brain?s dopamine system, which is involved in processing emotions and rewards. The project will determine the extent to which dopamine system anatomy and function predict changes in decision-making and memory in the current context of the pandemic. This project leverages a recently completed neuroimaging study that includes structural, functional, and diffusion-weighted data, which characterized the dopamine system in a group of 50 participants who completed a series of cognitive and behavioral tasks assessing impulsivity, inhibitory control, and value-directed memory formation. To assess the emotional impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on decision-making, these same cognitive and behavioral tasks will be made available online to the same group of participants from the previous study. The degree to which emotional state, and pre-existing dopamine system anatomy, predicts differences in decision-making and memory formation relative to baseline will be tested. Dopamine system anatomy is predicted to moderate the relationship among emotions, cognition, and behavior. Overall, the project will contribute to an understanding of how brain and emotion combine to impact behavioral responses to COVID-19.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2032308 | RAPID Collaborative: Networks and Spatial Dynamics of the US Food Supply Chain amid the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | Strengthening American Infras., Human Networks & Data Sci Res | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Tracy Van Holt | NY | New York University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 05/31/2021 | $95,338.00 | [email protected] | 70 WASHINGTON SQUARE S | NEW YORK | NY | 100121019 | 2129982121 | SBE | 145Y, 147Y | 096Z, 1352, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | Security and safety in food supply chains is critical to preventing the transmission of COVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that the US food-supply system is vulnerable. As the pandemic forced restaurants to close, or dramatically curtail operations, the news reported that farmers were discarding products because the buyers (restaurants) were no longer buying. At the same time consumers are struggling to find products in the supermarkets. Restaurant-supply networks may play a larger role in the resilience and sustainability of the US supply network than people had thought. It is clear now that these food distribution networks likely have evolved independently to maximize efficiency, not resiliency to risks such as pandemics. Recognizing this problem, and the potential impact on the economy, jobs, and national security, the US government has invested billions of dollars to buy and redistribute food that farmers were discarding. This research will pinpoint weak links in the food-supply network during the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly assessing disruptions in restaurant-supply network, which include restaurateurs, distributors, and producers. The team?s novel spatial, ethnographic, networks (SENs) approach will also advance supply chain management theory by quantifying difficult-to-reach components within supply chains. The goal is to provide actionable strategies that can identify how people can adapt and help create a more resilient and sustainable US Food System amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and avoid these disruptions in future unanticipated events. Finally, the project?s novel SENs approach will train students in research methods that can be rapidly applied to tackle unexpected changes in our global food system. <br/><br/>Supply-chain scholars are calling for new theoretical developments that account for the complexities and dynamics, and provides visibility to hidden components in supply networks. This project will bridge the gap in knowledge through spatial, ethnographically-derived, networks (SENs). A multi-phase comparative research design is employed that allows the ability to maximize the comparison potential of the analysis along key dimensions: the onset and intensity of COVID-19 and the influence of regional supply distribution over time. The overall goal is to understand what are the structural and spatial characteristics of actors? (restaurateurs?, distributors?, and farmers?) supply networks that lead to various outcomes (e.g., new business opportunities, more sustainable practices, staying in business, or closing shop). Key informant interviews will be used to design structured interviews that will be conducted at two points in time. A number of measures will be derived from these survey spatially-explicit food supply networks for key informants, including a Sourcing Diversity Index that characterizes distributor typologies, geography, and ego network measures. By capturing these disruptions at the onset, and throughout the pandemic, this project will be able to identify key areas of the food-supply network that are vulnerable, not only for this pandemic, but other global disruptions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2032313 | RAPID Collaborative: Networks and Spatial Dynamics of the US Food Supply Chain amid the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | Strengthening American Infras., Human Networks & Data Sci Res | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Craig Carter | AZ | Arizona State University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 05/31/2021 | $53,692.00 | [email protected] | ORSPA | TEMPE | AZ | 852816011 | 4809655479 | SBE | 145Y, 147Y | 096Z, 1352, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | Security and safety in food supply chains is critical to preventing the transmission of COVID-19. During the COVID-19 pandemic, it has become clear that the US food-supply system is vulnerable. As the pandemic forced restaurants to close, or dramatically curtail operations, the news reported that farmers were discarding products because the buyers (restaurants) were no longer buying. At the same time consumers are struggling to find products in the supermarkets. Restaurant-supply networks may play a larger role in the resilience and sustainability of the US supply network than people had thought. It is clear now that these food distribution networks likely have evolved independently to maximize efficiency, not resiliency to risks such as pandemics. Recognizing this problem, and the potential impact on the economy, jobs, and national security, the US government has invested billions of dollars to buy and redistribute food that farmers were discarding. This research will pinpoint weak links in the food-supply network during the COVID-19 pandemic by rapidly assessing disruptions in restaurant-supply network, which include restaurateurs, distributors, and producers. The team?s novel spatial, ethnographic, networks (SENs) approach will also advance supply chain management theory by quantifying difficult-to-reach components within supply chains. The goal is to provide actionable strategies that can identify how people can adapt and help create a more resilient and sustainable US Food System amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and avoid these disruptions in future unanticipated events. Finally, the project?s novel SENs approach will train students in research methods that can be rapidly applied to tackle unexpected changes in our global food system. <br/><br/>Supply-chain scholars are calling for new theoretical developments that account for the complexities and dynamics, and provides visibility to hidden components in supply networks. This project will bridge the gap in knowledge through spatial, ethnographically-derived, networks (SENs). A multi-phase comparative research design is employed that allows the ability to maximize the comparison potential of the analysis along key dimensions: the onset and intensity of COVID-19 and the influence of regional supply distribution over time. The overall goal is to understand what are the structural and spatial characteristics of actors? (restaurateurs?, distributors?, and farmers?) supply networks that lead to various outcomes (e.g., new business opportunities, more sustainable practices, staying in business, or closing shop). Key informant interviews will be used to design structured interviews that will be conducted at two points in time. A number of measures will be derived from these survey spatially-explicit food supply networks for key informants, including a Sourcing Diversity Index that characterizes distributor typologies, geography, and ego network measures. By capturing these disruptions at the onset, and throughout the pandemic, this project will be able to identify key areas of the food-supply network that are vulnerable, not only for this pandemic, but other global disruptions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2031217 | RAPID: Responding to extreme heat in the time of COVID-19 | BCS | Human-Envi & Geographical Scis | 06/01/2020 | 06/01/2020 | Olga Wilhelmi | CO | University Corporation For Atmospheric Res | Standard Grant | Jacqueline Vadjunec | 05/31/2021 | $199,923.00 | Mary Hayden, Peter Howe | [email protected] | 3090 Center Green Drive | Boulder | CO | 803012252 | 3034971000 | SBE | 141Y | 096Z, 1352, 7914 | $0.00 | Responding to extreme heat conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic could place many vulnerable populations at further risk during the warm summer months when many people leave their houses to escape the heat and visit cooling centers and other public spaces. People?s vulnerability is likely to vary over time and space, shifting with the extent of exposure to extreme heat, differences in policy and community response, and disease pressure from COVID-19. By assessing experiences, risk perceptions, behaviors, and perceived ability to respond to these conditions, the investigators will improve the understanding of how people cope with and adapt to multiple evolving hazards. The project will contribute to broader efforts to understand and reduce population health risks from extreme weather events during a global pandemic. The project?s findings will be broadly disseminated to researchers, public health and emergency management practitioners, and the public. <br/><br/>This project brings together theory and methods from geography and behavioral sciences to develop new knowledge about the interactions among people, their environment, and multiple evolving hazards. This research will build on existing theoretical foundations and empirical knowledge and will examine how extreme weather conditions, COVID-19, local policies, and environmental and socio-demographic characteristics affect the public?s risk perceptions, behaviors, and ability to take protective measures. The investigators will conduct a series of georeferenced nationally representative surveys combined with spatially explicit modeling with questions about COVID-19 and extreme heat risk perceptions and experiences, self-reported symptoms of heat stress and COVID-19, household coping capacity, self-efficacy, and protective behaviors undertaken to reduce vulnerability. The project findings will inform risk communication and public health intervention strategies aimed at reducing extreme heat and COVID-19-related impacts that can be generalized for other multi-hazard events.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029498 | RAPID: Understanding increased social bias during the COVID-19 crisis in the United States | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, Social Psychology | 06/01/2020 | 06/01/2020 | Jonathon Schuldt | NY | Cornell University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 05/31/2021 | $192,235.00 | Peter Enns | [email protected] | 373 Pine Tree Road | Ithaca | NY | 148502820 | 6072555014 | SBE | 1321, 1332 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | Research has found that disruptive social events can lead to increased social bias toward outgroup members. This research examines this relationship in the context of the COVID-19 crisis in the United States, which has adversely affected the health and economic well-being of millions of Americans. Although numerous incidents of bias directed toward immigrants and people of Asian descent have been reported since the outbreak began, research is needed to understand the extent of this bias and the factors that produce it. This research will address this need, by analyzing both existing as well as new survey data from nationally representative samples of Americans collected throughout much of 2020, as the crisis emerged and continues to evolve. The results will provide insights into how COVID-19 is affecting social attitudes in the United States, and more generally, into the ways that diverse societies respond to large-scale disruptions that threaten their way of life. <br/><br/>This research will test the hypothesis that the relationship between COVID-19 risk perceptions and social bias may be less straightforward than existing theory and research suggest, and that this relationship may vary as a function of local threat conditions, type of perceived risk (health vs. economic), and personal characteristics. The research team analyzes public opinion data from leading survey organizations to test this hypothesis. In one component of the research, the team collects new data from a representative sample of the United States public to measure attitudes toward immigration and toward members of different racial and ethnic groups, alongside attitudes about COVID-19. They repeat this survey throughout the spring, summer, and fall of 2020 to study how these attitudes and their relationship may change in real time. In a second component of the research, they analyze existing survey data on COVID-19 attitudes that have been collected since February 2020. By combining new data with existing data, they are building a comprehensive dataset featuring thousands of survey interviews on COVID-19 attitudes and social bias spanning most of 2020. This research will generate robust estimates of COVID-19 attitudes and social bias, and their degree of stability versus change, as the crisis continues to unfold. By revealing where and when social bias is most prevalent, this research will help diverse societies such as the United States protect their residents against negative treatment the next time a similar crisis emerges, as well as during less severe incidents of disruption and insecurity.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027085 | RAPID: Approach-Avoidance Tendencies to Pathogen-Salience as a Function of Uncertainty and Regional COVID-19 Infection Rates | BCS | Social Psychology, EPSCoR Co-Funding | 04/01/2020 | 05/18/2020 | Philip Gable | AL | University of Alabama Tuscaloosa | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 03/31/2021 | $77,472.00 | Raheem Paxton | [email protected] | 801 University Blvd. | Tuscaloosa | AL | 354870001 | 2053485152 | SBE | 1332, 9150 | 096Z, 1332, 7914, 9150 | $0.00 | The growing presence of COVID-19 in the United States creates a social psychological problem of a scale never before encountered in modern times. This time-critical research project investigates how peoples? feelings of uncertainty about the spread of COVID-19 across the United States impacts emotional and motivational behaviors to avoid the virus, even when people may be unaware of how they feel and act. Emotion-based responses are hypothesized to be amplified because of the uncertainty involved in a contagion spread. To test this hypothesis, the project develops a novel smart phone application that participants can use around the country, even when they are in physical isolation. The smart phone application creates a novel way to study the emotional impact of virus transmission as well as educate participants about their own motivations to stay healthy. This project informs and educates about the science of COVID-19 transmission and prevention to help develop interventions for this and future pandemics.<br/> <br/>This time-critical RAPID project utilizes the smart phone application to engage in immediate nationwide testing of one thousand individuals from across the country. Testing will continue for nine months so that peak and declining rates of disease are captured. The smart phone application assesses non-conscious motivational tendencies to avoid objects and people which could potentially transmit COVID-19. The research also tests how these motivational tendencies promote or hinder health-related behaviors such as handwashing and social distancing. Importantly, the project investigates regional differences of infection rates across the United States to test the influence of increasing and declining infection rates on peoples? feelings and actions. The research and the software developed in this project will facilitate the development of future interventions aimed at reducing the emotional distress caused by the spread of deadly diseases and to increase healthy behaviors in response to them.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Social Psychology Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029043 | Collaborative Research: RAPID: Socioeconomic Determinants of Social Distancing Behaviors in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic | SES | Sociology | 05/15/2020 | 05/05/2020 | Christopher Browning | OH | Ohio State University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $186,155.00 | Jodi Ford, Baldwin Way, Bethany Boettner | [email protected] | Office of Sponsored Programs | Columbus | OH | 432101016 | 6146888735 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The behavioral or ?social distancing? response to the COVID-19 pandemic will largely determine the rate at which the virus spreads throughout the U.S. population. To encourage social distancing, many states have closed schools and nonessential businesses and instituted ?Stay-at-Home? orders that limit trips to necessary activities such as grocery shopping and medical care. While Stay-at-Home orders are typically considered mandatory, most states rely on voluntary compliance rather than penalize infractions through citations or arrests. A persistent concern throughout the crisis has been the extent to which individuals are choosing to practice social distancing effectively in order to slow the growth of the pandemic. Yet, to date, virtually no systematic information has emerged on differences in social distancing across social groups by income, race/ethnicity, and residential neighborhood and, critically, why these differences exist. This project will address this gap by collecting detailed data on social distancing practices during the COVID-19 pandemic ? including the timing and location of non-home trips over the course of a week ? from a sample of youth and their caregivers in the Columbus, OH area. The study will build on an ongoing project focused on differences in patterns of everyday activity under normal (non-pandemic) conditions). Enhanced effectiveness of social distancing holds the potential to save millions of lives, reduce the burden to inevitably taxed health care systems during pandemics, and mitigate potential longer-term damage to the US and global economies due to ineffective pandemic containment. Findings from the project will provide crucial guidance to policy-makers who must target interventions to most effectively contain viral outbreaks and address the needs of the most vulnerable populations during pandemics. Findings will also provide important information for epidemiologists who must model disease spread based on realistic assumptions regarding social distancing practices across the population. Finally, clinicians will also benefit from more precise information on infection risk profiles at the individual level. <br/><br/>COVID-19 has prompted requirements for social-distancing, and yet we know little about who complies and who does not. This project will re-contact 246 households (N=309 youth) who participated in an ongoing NIH-funded study of everyday spatial exposures that was in the field in the period prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (the Adolescent Health and Development in Context study). Objective 1 of the study will investigate the association between income, race/ethnicity, and residential neighborhood economic disadvantage and typical (pre-pandemic) exposure to higher infection risk locations as captured by the density of social interaction at those places. These data will shed light on infection risk during the early stages of the pandemic before social distancing behaviors were widely adopted. The study will leverage unique data from the baseline study on the geographic location and associated characteristics of everyday places visited based on a novel survey-based method for the collection of geographically-referenced activity data. Objective 2 of the study will re-administer this location data collection approach during the peak period of the pandemic to measure income, race/ethnicity and neighborhood variation in the extent of social distancing behaviors for both caregivers and youth. Objective 3 will address the consequences of pandemic exposure and social distancing behaviors for economic hardship, mental health, family conflict, and youth behavioral problems. The project will generate the first geographically referenced data on the mobility of youth and their caregivers during pandemics in combination with extensive, high quality social survey data. Findings will inform sociological theories regarding the social and geographic determinants of compliance behavior, which complement psychological investigations more attuned to personality and individual determinants of the same.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028461 | RAPID: Mobilizing Close Relationships to Combat the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | Social Psychology | 04/15/2020 | 04/15/2020 | Sandra Murray | NY | SUNY at Buffalo | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 03/31/2021 | $117,890.00 | Mark Seery | [email protected] | 520 Lee Entrance | Buffalo | NY | 142282567 | 7166452634 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | To stop the spread of COVID-19, people need to practice the protective behaviors that public health and government officials recommend. To follow such recommendations, people in turn need to trust that government and public health officials are providing good advice. They also need to trust that their fellow citizens will practice the protective behaviors too. Unfortunately, the spread of COVID-19 makes it difficult to trust others because other people are the source of illness. This project aims to understand how people can use their closest personal relationships as a resource in helping them to trust more in other people and in government and public health officials. Understanding how close relationships can be used as a resource in coping with COVID-19 can help identify simple techniques to bolster trust in others and ultimately motivate people to engage in recommended self-protective behaviors.<br/><br/>This project centers on the idea that motivating people to trust more in their closest interpersonal partners can also make them more trusting of their fellow citizens and government and public health officials. Trusting in a close partner should have this effect because such trust should make it seem safer and less risky to depend on other people as well. Past research in this area has focused on how partners and family members influence one another. This project seeks to expand this knowledge by considering that relationships might succeed or fail as a consequence of the ways in which people?s lives are intertwined with the actions of those in the collective relational world. The project therefore offers an opportunity to fundamentally transform basic understanding of close relationship dynamics by studying relationships as part of an interconnected system of relationships within the national and global community. A 3-week intervention study examines the effects of a trust-bolstering intervention. Daily experiences are collected each day, focusing on participant?s concerns about COVID-19, trust in others, and self-protective behavior. This project offers a formal test of how trusting a partner can make the world itself seem more trustworthy and motivate people to engage in the kinds of behaviors needed to stop the spread of illness. Understanding the role that close personal relationships play in shaping people?s responses to the world around them can help promote the kind of trust and cooperation needed for people to rise to global challenges.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2032745 | RAPID: Investigating Public Health and Social Information Disparities During the COVID-19 Pandemic | SES | Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace | 06/15/2020 | 06/10/2020 | Kisung Lee | LA | Louisiana State University | Standard Grant | Sara Kiesler | 05/31/2021 | $200,000.00 | Nina Lam, Sara Curran | [email protected] | 202 Himes Hall | Baton Rouge | LA | 708032701 | 2255782760 | SBE | 8060 | 025Z, 065Z, 075Z, 096Z, 7434, 7914, 9102, 9150 | $0.00 | Studying differential COVID-19 responses to trustworthy information will contribute new perspectives and improve our fundamental understanding of the human aspects of information trustworthiness during a pandemic. Although many U.S. residents are heeding restrictive COVID-19 orders and warnings from both official guidance and public health information sources, some individuals are not following official guidance. Simultaneously, the pandemic has spread through major U.S. cities and states in an uneven manner. Moreover, COVID-19 messaging is complicated by evolving guidance and contagion information, and media framing complicates information transmission, shifting public understanding of official guidance. Understanding and evaluating how a population is reacting to these multiple sources of information is a crucial scientific challenge with implications for improving future public policy and more effective crisis mitigation. To better understand differential population responses to this crisis, this interdisciplinary research project will gather Twitter data in Louisiana and Washington State to analyze differential sentiment and language use in responses to health information and public guidance, across assumed age and linked geographic conditions. It will also assess how these differences change given time, location, health, economic, social conditions, and sources of information. Assessing the systematic variation of sentiment and language use across age and then across time, space, context, and information sources will provide vital insight to targeting effective public messaging by public health and government officials during a crisis.<br/><br/>This project will collect three waves of Twitter and associated data to study differential sentiment and language use in responses to health information and public health guidance concerning COVID-19. This interdisciplinary project seeks to advance knowledge about how disparities in information consumption, as represented by sentiment and language use, vary across sources of information and guidance, across time, geography, socio-demographic characteristics, and health conditions. This project will compare sentiment and language use patterns among a population of Twitter users based on the content of their tweets, and analyze how these characteristics evolve through the recognition of the emergency, the peak of the crisis, and the mitigation of the pandemic in the U.S. The project will use computational methods to understand sentiment patterns and language use on Twitter and link tweets and relevant entities to corresponding longitudinal data about trustworthy information sources, including news media sources and official emergency guidance, policies, and orders. The tweets and entities will be classified for relevance (individual, organization, or bot) with derived age and location. Using timestamps and derived location, the project will associate tweets with daily disease-specific rates and annual demographic and socio-economic information. Data about the surrounding information context, including reporting trends and framing of the crisis, sources of health information, and information-seeking behavior about COVID-19 will provide tools for assessing the validity and reliability of our inferences about the patterns of sentiment and language use. Project findings will contribute to the literature on computational methods, disaster communication, misinformation during crisis events, and disaster resilience, informing future guidance on policy and emergency messaging during a crisis.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2031726 | RAPID: Work, Family, and Social Well-Being among Couples in the Context of COVID-19 | SES | Sociology | 06/01/2020 | 06/09/2020 | Krista Brumley | MI | Wayne State University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 05/31/2021 | $191,000.00 | Boris Baltes, Shirin Montazer, Katheryn Maguire | [email protected] | 5057 Woodward | Detroit | MI | 482023622 | 3135772424 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | COVID-19 has disrupted daily work and home lives. More than 297 million people in the U.S. have been placed on full or partial social distancing restrictions. Millions were told to work remotely; others were deemed essential and found themselves on the frontline of this unprecedented pandemic. More than half the schools are closed, leaving more than 33 million children at home. Consequently, millions of dual-income families have been forced to find new ways to balance the competing needs of work and family while maintaining individual and relational well-being. Prior to COVID-19, research consistently showed workers to experience higher work-to-family than family-to-work conflict; however, workers may now experience as high, if not higher, family-to-work conflict given that they have to juggle work and family from the same location: home. Both of these conflicts can have negative effects on individuals and families, including psychological distress, anxiety, anger, guilt, and decreased couple relationship quality. Most studies to date have tested spillover effects of work to family conflict using individual-level data; few have examined the crossover effect with both members included in the analysis, and even fewer longitudinally. This project will survey and interview both adults of dual-income couples at three time points to assess how work, family, and health among dual-income couples have changed within the context of COVID-19. Findings from this project will inform workplaces on the development of policies to support workers and their families during times of crisis and return-to-work transitions, thus facilitating recovery from this pandemic and preparedness for future extreme events. These are key insights needed to train employers/workers on best practices for employment interventions on family-friendly policies, facilitating organizational change and contributing to healthy workplaces, thus facilitating health and well-being and U. S. economic competitiveness.<br/><br/><br/>Covid-19 has disrupted work and family arrangements owing to school closures, requirements for telework, and social distancing mandates. This project uses a mixed-methods approach by combining surveys and in-depth interviews with both members of a sample of dual-income couples over one year. The project will collect data at three time points: baseline (while most of country is under lockdown orders), transition (after orders start to phase out), and adaptation (one year after the first case of community transmission was detected). The project will use both a traditional single person data analysis strategy, including growth curve modeling and panel regression, and a dyadic data analytical method, the Actor-Partner Interdependence Model, to analyze survey data (n=300 couples; 600 individuals). For the qualitative data, the project will use a thematic analysis to identify emergent patterns on perceptual/behavioral work-family conflict, workplace resources/support, mental health, and relationships. The project will use the qualitative software package NVIVO to manage interview data. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories regarding work-family conflict and accommodation, as well as theories related to the gendered division of household labor.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030106 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: A "Citizen Science" approach to COVID-19 social distancing effects on children's language development | BCS | Sci of Lrng & Augmented Intel | 06/01/2020 | 06/09/2020 | Joshua Hartshorne | MA | Boston College | Standard Grant | Soo-Siang Lim | 05/31/2021 | $151,942.00 | [email protected] | 140 Commonwealth Avenue | Chestnut Hill | MA | 024673800 | 6175528000 | SBE | 127Y | 059Z, 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic is a significant threat to learning and language development for large numbers of children. Such challenges are compounded for those facing social and economic adversity, factors that are associated with decreased parental interactions, child development, and school achievement. This study examines the scope and magnitude of learning impacts from COVID19 pandemic by engaging families as ?Citizen Scientists? who will track their children?s language use during the crisis. Social-distancing policies vary by state, enabling the researchers to compare how these different decisions affect children?s language development. This will help policymakers and educators make more informed decisions, both about crisis management and strategies to mitigate negative effects of crisis-related policies. More broadly, this work will make important contributions to the science of language learning, which in turn will help clinicians and educators best address the needs of children from varying demographics. Finally, by using a Citizen Science paradigm, this project establishes a conduit for science outreach and education. <br/><br/>This project will recruit thousands of ?volunteer researchers? to record data about their own family environment, parent-child conversations, and child language development using a web-based application accessible through a laptop or mobile phone. In addition to collecting survey responses, this app enables parents to make short audio recordings of their child?s speech and build a scrapbook of developing language abilities over time. When paired with comprehensive recruitment, this platform will assemble speech samples that are both broad and deep and will support more accurate models of relations between children?s learning and long- vs. short-term adversity. Additionally, the varied timing of social disruptions across locations permits both between-family and within-family comparisons of COVID-19 impacts, and yields estimates of effect sizes and modulation by race and socioeconomic status. The data will address questions of urgent societal interest, including a) how COVID-19 policies impact language-learning environments; b) how family stress changes children?s language and communication behavior; and c) what impacts the COVID-19 crisis has on developmental outcomes. Moreover, since social disruptions affect a wide demographic and are largely outside family control, this project leverages the COVID-19 crisis as an unusually clean manipulation of social and economic adversity. This avoids confounds that are persistently problematic in existing research, and will deepen theoretical insight into the factors that affect children?s language learning.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2032735 | RAPID: Healthcare Workforce Resilience in the Time of Covid-19 | BCS | COVID-19 Research | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Harris Solomon | NC | Duke University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 05/31/2021 | $102,272.00 | Peter Kussin, Neelima Navulrui, Charles Hargett | [email protected] | 2200 W. Main St, Suite 710 | Durham | NC | 277054010 | 9196843030 | SBE | 158Y | 096Z, 1390, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has created disaster conditions for healthcare in the US, and has intensified the need for adaptive practices in healthcare work. The pandemic has brought high patient loads, rapidly-changing expertise, and shortages of personal protective equipment to hospitals, and consequently it poses significant adaptive challenges for healthcare workers. This problem is especially acute in intensive care units (ICUs), where the healthcare workforce must alter how they interact with their peers and with patients' families while working in close proximity to a contagious agent. Such changes are broadly understood as "resilience." However, the specific conditions of adversity and the creative responses healthcare workers may employ to adapt to them remain underexplored. Understanding how these workers adapt, and how these adaptations might promote resilience against adversity is critical to preventing the transmission of COVID-19. A social scientific study of an ICU's pathways to resilience can help researchers and policymakers understand what might promote resilience, which is important for addressing the current conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic, and for preparing for future possible challenges.<br/><br/>The research will be conducted in an intensive care unit in a hospital in North Carolina, where the COVID-19 pandemic is now beginning its localized peak. This is a key setting for research, because unlike larger cities but similar to many smaller cities and rural areas, the severity of cases in this study setting is predicted to maximize during the course of the research activities. This will offer the researchers the opportunity to gather detailed data about the dynamics of adaptive processes. The research will focus on different groups of workers in the ICU, and will examine possibly unique aspects to changing healthcare worker resilience practices, and how these social practices might be affecting how people relate to the transmission and spread of the virus. The study methods will include: (1) Semi-structured interviews conducted with ICU staff that address perspectives on the pandemic, to understand how workers perceive effects of the pandemic on their daily work activities and on their relationships with patients and families; (2) Open-ended interviews with a purposive sample of key decision-makers in the hospital, to understand how and to what extent care worker perspectives factor into guidelines and protocols; (3) Participant observation in the ICU to describe and understand practices of care work; and (4) Discourse analysis of best-practice materials circulated to staff in the hospital and in the ICU to track how changes in the pandemic register with official protocols and media sources. The multidisciplinary research time of an anthropologist and intensive care physicians offers a uniquely diverse approach to document this under-examined phenomenon of resilience among ICU workers, and to detail the social and workforce aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029575 | RAPID: Older adults? learning and adaptation as resilience processes to counter social isolation during the COVID-19 pandemic | BCS | Sci of Lrng & Augmented Intel, COVID-19 Research | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Rachel Wu | CA | University of California-Riverside | Standard Grant | Soo-Siang Lim | 05/31/2021 | $132,474.00 | Carla Strickland-Hughes | [email protected] | Research & Economic Development | RIVERSIDE | CA | 925210217 | 9518275535 | SBE | 127Y, 158Y | 059Z, 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The mental health and well-being of older adults are being threatened by the COVID-19 social distancing requirements that have limited social connectivity. For older adults, long-term social isolation predicts cognitive decline trajectories, reduced subjective well-being, and increased mortality. Thus, the COVID-19 global pandemic could intensify negative aging trajectories, even for healthy older adults. The proposed research will investigate factors that lead to or mitigate against social isolation and loneliness amid the current physical distancing restrictions. The primary hypothesis is that resilience across adulthood is dependent on two theoretically-derived factors: engagement in novel skill learning and positive personal beliefs. The results of these studies could guide the design of future interventions, such as supportive learning opportunities through technology. The unknown duration of the physical distancing restrictions, and the potential for future waves of infection drive the urgency of this research to develop enhanced resilience pathways. <br/><br/>This RAPID proposal seeks to examine social distancing in older adults and other potentially vulnerable populations through three aims: 1) Investigate how and to what extent different demographic groups (e.g. age, SES) are staying socially connected despite physical distancing; 2) Evaluate how learning and adaptive behaviors, and personal beliefs about age/abilities, predict successful social connectivity, higher subjective well-being, and lower levels of isolation and loneliness during the pandemic; and 3) Conduct match pair-comparisons with older adults who previously participated in a learning intervention promoting adaptation and positive beliefs. Integrating beliefs and behaviors to predict outcomes is central to Social Cognitive Theory. The current research will collect data before and after restrictions are revised to assess an extended conceptual model of this theory that focuses specifically on novel skill learning for adaptation. Findings from this project will inform development of infrastructures to better support older adults under social distancing practices of COVID-19 and other future crises.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030883 | RAPID: Challenges and Novel Responses in Law Enforcement and Criminal Courts to the COVID-19 Pandemic | SES | Law & Science | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Julie Baldwin | DC | American University | Standard Grant | Reggie Sheehan | 05/31/2021 | $157,138.00 | John Eassey | [email protected] | 4400 Massachusetts Avenue, NW | Washington | DC | 200168001 | 2028853440 | SBE | 128Y | 096Z, 7914, 9102, 9179 | $0.00 | Compared to other types of natural disasters which impact a limited geographic location, the current pandemic is remarkable for the effect it has had on the entire country. The criminal justice system has not been immune to this impact with law enforcement and courts having to adapt their operational decisions and responses. This study will conduct successive interviews with law enforcement agencies and adult criminal courts as they navigate and respond to the public health threat of COVID-19. It seeks to not only document how these agencies have responded, but to understand why they responded as they have, how their response has changed as new information becomes available, and the practical and pragmatic challenges they have faced in the process. Towards these ends, results seek to inform disaster preparedness, resource management, and criminal justice policy.<br/><br/>It has been argued that the deleterious consequences of natural and technological disasters depend largely on the physical and social vulnerability, or access to physical, social, and economic resources, of the impacted population. In much the same way, organizations, business, and other institutions are differentially vulnerable to disruptive events. How they cope with this vulnerability when confronted by such an event can be generally understood in the context of organizational decision making, which implies a complex process that involves differentially weighting specific and abstract costs and benefits associated with potential alternative choices. This study draws on theories/frameworks of emergency management, rational choice, and policing and criminal court administration in order to understand the manner in which law enforcement agencies and criminal courts are coping with the evolving threat of COVID-19. Towards these ends, a stratified random sample of law enforcement and criminal courts in each of the 50 states will be obtained and a longitudinal self-report survey will be administered in order to examine the following issues: (1) the practical and administrative challenges these entities face due to COVID-19, (2) the specific strategies/plans they have implemented or wanted to implement but could not in order to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic, (3) the challenges, successes, and consequences (anticipated and unintended) in the responses and implementation thereof, and (4) why responses were devised, implemented or not implemented, successful, challenging, and produced various outcomes. The study results can then be used to inform the development of new responses and improved implementation of innovative policies and practices, including emergency management plans for pandemics and how to communicate and collaborate effectively across the public health and criminal justice systems.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028968 | RAPID: Health, Housing, and Hazards: COVID-19, Subjective Resilience, Vulnerabilities, and Policy Evolution in Hurricane Prone Counties | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, COVID-19 Research | 05/15/2020 | 05/20/2020 | Alka Sapat | FL | Florida Atlantic University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $175,848.00 | Diana Mitsova-Boneva, Ann-Margaret Esnard | [email protected] | 777 GLADES RD | BOCA RATON | FL | 334316424 | 5612970777 | SBE | 1321, 158Y | 096Z, 7914, 9102, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic is a rapidly evolving global crisis that has multiple ramifications and impacts, particularly for those who are most vulnerable, and for those who are still recovering from past disasters. Individuals and households are facing multiple challenges, including health risks, precarious housing conditions, and exposure to weather and climate hazards, within the context of rapidly evolving policy mandates and short-term measures (such as moratoriums on evictions) to address the uncertainties stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic. This Rapid Response Research (RAPID) project seeks to capture ephemeral and time-bound data on the subjective perceptions of resilience of individuals and households, including their capacities to cope and adapt in response to these challenges. This serves the national interest and advances national health, prosperity and welfare by improving our understandings of several topics, including: (i) the factors influencing individual and household coping and adaptive capacities and their subjective perceptions of risk and resilience; and, (ii) the impacts of policy fragmentation and ambiguity in addressing inter-sectional and cumulative vulnerabilities related to health, housing, and hazards. The findings have practical applications for pandemic preparedness and disaster management, specifically for socially vulnerable populations with respect to housing, sheltering and evacuation in hazard-prone areas. <br/><br/>The study areas include counties in south and central Florida and the Panhandle, which are still recovering from Hurricanes Michael and Irma, and which saw an influx of displaced persons from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria. As the 2020 hurricane season looms, the potential impact of storms will further exacerbate the inter-sectional and cumulative vulnerabilities of renters and others living in precarious housing conditions. Data to achieve the research objectives includes repeated cross-sectional population surveys conducted in both English and Spanish via the Internet and landlines. Three waves of the survey are conducted to capture the immediate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the perceptions of resilience and coping and adaptive capacities of individuals and households over a few months: (i) early June 2020 to align with the beginning of the hurricane season and by which time there will be policies being implemented to address the fallout of the pandemic; (ii) October 2020 by which time the pandemic may abate or earlier if there is a major hurricane event in Florida; and (iii) March 2021, which is approximately a year after policy responses to the pandemic began. Secondary data are collected and analyzed from media sources and policy documents on the rapidly evolving policy measures adopted to combat the pandemic during the time periods immediately preceding the survey work. Given the study area, the research team is also interested in the immediate effects of temporary federal, state, and local-level policies dealing with evacuation, sheltering, and housing because of the pandemic and potential storms. Multivariate statistical models are used to examine the dynamic relationships between perceptions of resilience, risk perceptions, inter-sectional vulnerabilities related to health, housing, and hazards, and policies adopted to address the pandemic and its ramifications.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2032065 | RAPID: Spatial Resilience of Food Production, Supply Chains, and Security to COVID-19 | BCS | Human-Envi & Geographical Scis | 05/15/2020 | 05/14/2020 | Tom Evans | AZ | University of Arizona | Standard Grant | Jacqueline Vadjunec | 04/30/2021 | $199,905.00 | Zackry Guido, Katherine Baylis, Megan Konar | [email protected] | 888 N Euclid Ave | Tucson | AZ | 857194824 | 5206266000 | SBE | 141Y | 096Z, 1352, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 outbreak is affecting the national food system. Non-pharmaceutical interventions (e.g. stay-at-home measures) have disrupted food production, distribution through supply chains, and household food security. This project will collect ephemeral data on several components of the US food system that may not otherwise be properly archived during the pandemic. It will analyze the impacts of the disruptions on food production, food consumption, and supply chains to identify those locations most vulnerable to food security impacts. This project will also develop innovative analytical models and data integration approaches to investigate how the US food system is affected during a pandemic. Research outcomes, including county-level maps, model code, and spatial datasets, will be made freely available online for the research community. An online, interactive tool to explore how COVID-19 has disrupted the food supply chain will be produced to engage the public, media, and policy makers.<br/><br/>COVID-19 is creating dramatic changes in the location and timing of food supply and demand through impacts on large institutional buyers, grocery stores and food pantries. These sudden shocks to supply and demand by location are already giving rise to localized price volatility in some areas. Households that have experienced a loss of income due to labor disruptions are particularly vulnerable to the impacts of these food price shocks. This research seeks to understand the geographical dimensions of food security, such as where and how COVID-19 is impacting the food system, with a focus on increasing food system resilience. Novel data will be gathered and methods developed to determine the impact of COVID-19 on US food production, distribution, and demand. The model and research approach developed in this project will be generalizable to evaluating other disruptions to national supply chains.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028242 | RAPID: Distancing & Digital Information in the Face of COVID-19 | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 05/15/2020 | 05/05/2020 | Shalini Misra | VA | Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 04/30/2021 | $98,285.00 | Kris Wernstedt | [email protected] | Sponsored Programs 0170 | BLACKSBURG | VA | 240610001 | 5402315281 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic poses arguably the most formidable set of health and broader societal challenges of the 21st century to people around the world. This project studies the judgements, perceptions, and behaviors that result from different types, quality, and amount of digital information and different social distancing restrictions in a high-stress context of spatial distancing over a prolonged period during the COVID-19 crisis. Such understanding can help us develop better strategies?including shaping the content and timeliness of online and offline communication of public policies?to respond more effectively to future large-scale crises that also may impose restrictions on the day-to-day, face-to-face human interactions that comprise the norm for modern society.<br/><br/>As large numbers of people cut off spatial ties and limit their mobility in the COVID-19 pandemic, the demand for digital media has increased, not only to increase understanding of health and economic impacts and to reduce anxiety and uncertainty, but also to compensate for the severance of in person social interactions. This information comes from different sources, changes over time, and varies in quality, credibility, and timeliness. The research team hypothesizes that the nature of the information consumed and intensity of immersion in the digital environment during the COVID-19 pandemic can prompt different construals of the pandemic and thereby shape risk preferences and behaviors. The team investigates these perceptions, preferences, choices, and behavioral responses to spatial distancing public policies through a multiple wave, online panel study of 400 residents of the Washington-Arlington-Alexandria metropolitan area. The research uses construal level theory by empirically distinguishing between the spatial and psycho-social dimensions of the construct of psychological distancing and calibrating the psychological impacts of immersion in online environments during a period of limited in-person interactions. The team investigates how digital media and technology consumption influence construal level and how the interaction of these two factors shape individuals? risk perceptions, attitudes, and behaviors over time. Our research thus moves beyond simplistic explanations of the direct linkage between psychological distance, construal level, and judgments and decisions to a more nuanced understanding of interactions between construal mindsets and overload, stress, and fear.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028560 | RAPID: The Role of Emerging Virtual Cultures in the Prevention of COVID-19 Transmission | BCS | Cultural Anthropology | 05/01/2020 | 05/01/2020 | Thomas Boellstorff | CA | University of California-Irvine | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 04/30/2021 | $195,619.00 | [email protected] | 141 Innovation Drive, Ste 250 | Irvine | CA | 926173213 | 9498247295 | SBE | 1390 | 096Z, 1390, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has transformed our relationship to the physical world. Social distancing guidelines have led many people to avoid all forms of public life, from concerts and restaurants to everyday interaction in parks, neighborhoods, and the homes of family and friends. In response there has been a massive increase in online interaction: the internet has suddenly become the primary way that many Americans socialize, labor, and learn. It is crucial to gain a better understanding of how the emergence of these changes is related to the pandemic. Even if a vaccine is discovered, preventing catastrophic levels of COVID-19 transmission into the next few years will depend on social distancing that can be sustained and integrated with work, education, and community. This means going online. The starting point for addressing this global challenge is thus the fact that what we call ?social distancing? is really physical distancing. Successful physical distancing will rely on new forms of social closeness online. Yet there is not just one ?online.? A rapid and effective response requires clarifying the impact of virtual worlds as part of different forms of online interaction that comprise a virtual culture: social network sites, streaming websites, and multiplayer platforms. The project will also train graduate student researchers in methodological approaches for studying online cultures. <br/><br/>This research will be conducted in a densely trafficked virtual world. Virtual worlds are places where individuals interact with avatars in online environments. The investigators have conducted research in a virtual world context for over a decade, and thus have detailed baseline data with which to examine what is happening as a large number of individuals enter that virtual world due to the COVID-19 pandemic. What is the sudden move to virtual worlds doing in terms of social closeness and interaction? How does co-presence in virtual place transform intimacy and collaboration? How might this provide innovative strategies for preventing viral transmission, by forging new forms of social closeness in the context of physical distancing? To investigate these questions, the researchers will conduct participant observation, individual interviews, and group interviews. The study will compare individuals who have spent time in the virtual world for years with individuals who have entered the virtual world after COVID-19. Findings from this research will provide insight into the specific possibilities virtual worlds are providing in the circumstances of societies reshaped by COVID-19. In these new circumstances, virtual worlds will be one element of an online ecosystem linking drones, robots, and autonomous vehicles to mobile devices, social network sites, online games and streaming, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and data analytics. The research will thus provide a better understanding of the place of virtual worlds in this emerging online ecosystem.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028622 | RAPID: New York Covid-19 Chronicle and Oral History Archive | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, Sociology | 05/01/2020 | 04/27/2020 | Peter Bearman | NY | Columbia University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $200,000.00 | [email protected] | 2960 Broadway | NEW YORK | NY | 100276902 | 2128546851 | SBE | 1321, 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic is the gravest public health crisis the United States has faced since the Influenza pandemic of 1918, but it will not be the last. Disaster research is often by necessity retrospective, providing accounts of past actions and ongoing recoveries. The temporal profile of the COVID-19 pandemic presents an opportunity for social research in the middle of an unfolding crisis, providing contemporaneous insights into risk perception and sensemaking under duress, community and organizational resilience, transformations in social structure, and real time adaptations to severe economic and social dislocations. Concentrating on New York City, this project will create a contemporaneous record of the city?s battle with COVID-19 across the epidemic curve. New York is a critical site for understanding the course of this pandemic because it was an early epicenter of the disease in the U.S., because it has a robust municipal emergency management system with deep experience of past disasters, health-related and otherwise, and because it is home to one of the nation?s strongest urban healthcare systems. The project will provide real time findings about New York City that will be relevant to jurisdictions in earlier phases along the arc of the pandemic, thus assisting other governmental leaders in planning effective responses. This project will also rigorously document the COVID-19 emergency to better understand how it is unfolding, to better inform the recovery, and to learn lessons that will aid our fight against the next pandemic and other extreme events. These findings will be critical to leaders at all levels of government so as to promote the safety and security of U.S. residents in the years ahead.<br/><br/>The current COVID-19 pandemic challenges community and organizational resilience and necessitates transformations in social structure. To analyze these changes, this project combines three approaches to data gathering that capture the evolving and multi-dimensional impact of the COVID-19 crisis on New Yorkers. First, a survey of 1,000 people will track shifts in stress responses, helping behaviors, social isolation, and resilience. Demographic data gathered from the survey will inform and refine recruitment of new participants. The sample will be stratified across different scales of the response: everyday New Yorkers, frontline workers--including first and second responders, critical infrastructure and other essential workers--and strategic level decision makers, managers, and planners. These results will be complemented by data from a diary study with 500 participants, and a sequence of oral history interviews with 200 narrators at expanding intervals, to produce a rich longitudinal perspective on the relationship between micro shifts in attitudes and relations, and macro transformations in urban structures and dynamics. Findings will inform sociological theories regarding the relationship between micro- and macro-levels of social organization, disaster preparedness and response, risk perception and social stress.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028922 | RAPID: Strategic Science Communication in the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | Social Psychology | 05/01/2020 | 04/20/2020 | Bernhard Leidner | MA | University of Massachusetts Amherst | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 04/30/2021 | $193,832.00 | [email protected] | Research Administration Building | Hadley | MA | 010359450 | 4135450698 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis threatening millions of lives, the economy, and national infrastructures, including healthcare, housing markets, and industrial supply chains. Health organizations, government, and local communities have introduced various measures to reduce the impact of the pandemic. In this global context, this project examines and compares people?s compliance with these measures over time, and across diverse cultural and governance contexts. Specifically, it focuses on how different value and belief systems influence (non-)compliance with containment measures as the pandemic unfolds. In doing so, the research enhances basic understanding of science/policy communications and their impact on public attitudes and behaviors. Ultimately, the project helps identify best science communication practices to inform and educate people about COVID-19 and similar crises. <br/><br/>Policies and scientific recommendations aimed to contain the spread of the COVID-19 virus have generated critical discussions about the prioritization of collective versus individual values. Tradeoffs often focus on public security and health versus individual autonomy and civil liberties. As a result, large-scale societal crises have the potential to shift value prioritization both during and beyond the crisis. By integrating theories from social and cross-cultural psychology, this research explores the role of different value systems, including basic human values, social values, and cultural values, in public responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. A collaborative research network will collect primary data from representative adult samples at three time points during the pandemic. Changes are tracked in public endorsement of different values over the course of three months. Analyses focus on how these changes predict attitudinal and behavioral responses to policies and scientific recommendations. The project also examines the roles of factors such as the severity of the pandemic, socio-economic condition, and existing value systems in these changes. The research will advance scientific understanding of basic human values, how people respond to science communications, and how best to design such communications to achieve important societal goals.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029106 | Collaborative Research: RAPID: Socioeconomic Determinants of Social Distancing Behaviors in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic | SES | Sociology | 05/15/2020 | 05/05/2020 | Catherine Calder | TX | University of Texas at Austin | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $13,243.00 | [email protected] | 3925 W Braker Lane, Ste 3.340 | Austin | TX | 787595316 | 5124716424 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The behavioral or ?social distancing? response to the COVID-19 pandemic will largely determine the rate at which the virus spreads throughout the U.S. population. To encourage social distancing, many states have closed schools and nonessential businesses and instituted ?Stay-at-Home? orders that limit trips to necessary activities such as grocery shopping and medical care. While Stay-at-Home orders are typically considered mandatory, most states rely on voluntary compliance rather than penalize infractions through citations or arrests. A persistent concern throughout the crisis has been the extent to which individuals are choosing to practice social distancing effectively in order to slow the growth of the pandemic. Yet, to date, virtually no systematic information has emerged on differences in social distancing across social groups by income, race/ethnicity, and residential neighborhood and, critically, why these differences exist. This project will address this gap by collecting detailed data on social distancing practices during the COVID-19 pandemic ? including the timing and location of non-home trips over the course of a week ? from a sample of youth and their caregivers in the Columbus, OH area. The study will build on an ongoing project focused on differences in patterns of everyday activity under normal (non-pandemic) conditions). Enhanced effectiveness of social distancing holds the potential to save millions of lives, reduce the burden to inevitably taxed health care systems during pandemics, and mitigate potential longer-term damage to the US and global economies due to ineffective pandemic containment. Findings from the project will provide crucial guidance to policy-makers who must target interventions to most effectively contain viral outbreaks and address the needs of the most vulnerable populations during pandemics. Findings will also provide important information for epidemiologists who must model disease spread based on realistic assumptions regarding social distancing practices across the population. Finally, clinicians will also benefit from more precise information on infection risk profiles at the individual level. <br/><br/>COVID-19 has prompted requirements for social-distancing, and yet we know little about who complies and who does not. This project will re-contact 246 households (N=309 youth) who participated in an ongoing NIH-funded study of everyday spatial exposures that was in the field in the period prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic (the Adolescent Health and Development in Context study). Objective 1 of the study will investigate the association between income, race/ethnicity, and residential neighborhood economic disadvantage and typical (pre-pandemic) exposure to higher infection risk locations as captured by the density of social interaction at those places. These data will shed light on infection risk during the early stages of the pandemic before social distancing behaviors were widely adopted. The study will leverage unique data from the baseline study on the geographic location and associated characteristics of everyday places visited based on a novel survey-based method for the collection of geographically-referenced activity data. Objective 2 of the study will re-administer this location data collection approach during the peak period of the pandemic to measure income, race/ethnicity and neighborhood variation in the extent of social distancing behaviors for both caregivers and youth. Objective 3 will address the consequences of pandemic exposure and social distancing behaviors for economic hardship, mental health, family conflict, and youth behavioral problems. The project will generate the first geographically referenced data on the mobility of youth and their caregivers during pandemics in combination with extensive, high quality social survey data. Findings will inform sociological theories regarding the social and geographic determinants of compliance behavior, which complement psychological investigations more attuned to personality and individual determinants of the same.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029839 | RAPID: Funerary Practices, Pandemic Confinement, and the Implications for COVID-19 Transmission | BCS | Cultural Anthropology | 05/01/2020 | 04/29/2020 | Sarah Wagner | DC | George Washington University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 04/30/2021 | $97,509.00 | Joel Kuipers, Roy Richard Grinker, Devin Proctor, Jorge Benavides-Rawson | [email protected] | 1922 F Street NW | Washington | DC | 200520086 | 2029940728 | SBE | 1390 | 096Z, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | In April 2020, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention identified funerals as high-risk sites for COVID-19 transmission. Funerals are vital to the social health of a community. They allow people to grieve together and remember their deceased, but when the bereaved are not permitted to gather physically, communal mourning becomes more complicated. Therefore, understanding forms of adapted, and accepted, virtual (online) rituals and memorials and their role in preventing infection spread is paramount for addressing future surges of COVID-19 across the United States, as well as for future epidemics. Preliminary research with religious leaders and funeral home directors suggests that social distancing mandates that interrupt funeral, burial, and memorial practices have met with confusion and even resistance. This study will provide key information for the development of public health programs and guidelines that address the risks facing communities that continue to conduct in-person rituals. Given the social importance of funerals and the central role of mourning in the pandemic, communities urgently need to promote practices that preserve the cultural and religious significance of such rites but do not exacerbate viral transmission. The project also provides training for graduate and undergraduate students in methods of rigorous, scientific data collection and analysis.<br/> <br/>The study comes at a time when the rate of COVID-19 infections is at risk of rising exponentially and funeral capacity is being overwhelmed. The investigators thus seek to identify factors that enable or inhibit people?s ability to follow social distancing guidelines that interrupt or run counter to obligations of care for the dead. As research on the Ebola crisis demonstrated, anthropologists? focus on the local perspectives of grieving communities provided crucial insights into the factors that reduced or heightened the risk of infection, and thus played an important role in public health interventions. In collaboration with diverse religious communities, funeral practitioners, and representatives from the National Funeral Directors Association, the study will assess how religious tradition (or lack thereof) influences the adaptation of funeral rites, and how COVID-19-related constraints on funeral care shift the burden of organizing collective mourning onto the family and into virtual spaces. The project incorporates a range of methodological approaches aimed at capturing in real time these adaptive processes, including virtual participant observation (e.g., synchronous religious rites, and funeral and memorial services), initial and follow-up semi-structured interviews, discourse analysis of digital media, and survey instruments. The researchers will pay special attention to variations in access to virtual media. Because rituals reflect the capacity for communities, whether religious or secular, to marshal material and symbolic resources, they illuminate how structural inequalities create disparities across communities and generations. The study thus contributes foundational knowledge to the social analysis of death marked in virtual space, broadening our understanding of the interconnected roles of media, technology, and religion and during times of crisis.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028981 | RAPID: Procedural Changes in State Courts During COVID-19 | SES | Law & Science | 04/15/2020 | 04/21/2020 | Alyx Mark | CT | Wesleyan University | Standard Grant | Mark Hurwitz | 03/31/2021 | $34,712.00 | [email protected] | 237 HIGH ST | Middletown | CT | 064593208 | 8606853683 | SBE | 128Y | 096Z, 7914, 9178 | $0.00 | State courts are rapidly changing their operating procedures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. As courthouses close their doors to the public, judges, administrators, and staff are developing and implementing policies that are responsive to the needs of people who otherwise would rely on in-person court processes for remedies to their civil legal problems. The COVID-19 pandemic provides a unique opportunity to study the generation and consequences of massive change and innovation to court policies and procedures across the United States. This RAPID project will investigate the processes underlying the development of these major institutional changes as state courts respond to the challenges of remote operations during COVID-19, how the various changes are implemented, and the effect of these changes on access to justice for state court consumer populations.<br/><br/>By taking advantage of the unique circumstance of forced innovation during COVID-19, the project will examine the procedural changes state courts craft in their move to remote operations. Employing a mixed-method approach, the research will catalogue the rapidly evolving COVID-19 responses in the states. The project will include surveys and interviews of court administrators, judges, and staff about their involvement in the changes and their attitudes about institutional design and implementation. Further, the project will analyze how these changes influence outcomes and processes on state court staff and consumers. By testing theories of institutional arrangements and design, findings from the project will provide an understanding of the external and internal forces that drive institutional change, how policies disperse and replicate across states, and the consequences of institutional design and changes thereto for access to justice during COVID-19.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027375 | RAPID: Geospatial Modeling of COVID-19 Spread and Risk Communication by Integrating Human Mobility and Social Media Big Data | BCS | Geography and Spatial Sciences | 04/15/2020 | 03/27/2020 | Song Gao | WI | University of Wisconsin-Madison | Standard Grant | Jacqueline Vadjunec | 09/30/2021 | $199,888.00 | Jonathan Patz, Qin Li, Kaiping Chen | [email protected] | 21 North Park Street | MADISON | WI | 537151218 | 6082623822 | SBE | 1352 | 096Z, 1352, 7914 | $0.00 | This project will investigate the gap between the science of epidemic modeling and risk communication to the general public in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. With the rapid development of information, communication, and technologies, new data acquisition and assessment methods are needed to evaluate the risk of epidemic transmission and geographic spreading from the community perspective, to help effectively monitor social distancing policies, and to understand social disparities and environmental contexts in risk communication. This project will make theoretical, methodological, and practical contributions that advance the understanding of the COVID-19 spread across both time and space. The communication aspects of this research will serve to educate communities about the science, timing, and geography of virus transmission in order to enhance actions for addressing such global health challenges. This project explores the capabilities and potential of integrating social media big data and geospatial artificial intelligence (GeoAI) technologies to enable and transform spatial epidemiology research and risk communication. Results will be disseminated broadly to multiple stakeholder groups. Further, this project will support both researchers and students from underrepresented groups, broadening participation in STEM fields. Lastly, the Web platform developed in this project will serve as an education tool for students in geography, communication, mathematics, and public health, as well as for effectively engaging with communities about the science of COVID-19. <br/><br/>Past health research mainly focuses on quantitative modeling of human transmission using various epidemic models. How to effectively communicate the science of an epidemic outbreak to the general public remains a challenge. When an epidemic outbreak occurs without specific controls in place, it can be particularly challenging to improve community risk awareness and action. The research team, composed of experts from geography, mathematics, public health and life sciences communication will (1) develop innovative mathematical predictive models that integrate spatio-temporal-social network information and community-centered approaches; (2) integrate census statistics, human mobility and social media big data, as well as policy controls to conduct data-synthesis-driven and epidemiology-guided risk analysis; And (3) utilize panel surveys and text mining techniques on social media data for better understanding public awareness of COVID-19 and for investigating various instant message and visual image strategies to effectively communicate about risks to the public. The results of this project will lead to a better understanding of the geography and spread of COVID-19. Additionally, it is expected that the methods developed in this project can be applied to mitigate the outbreak risks of future epidemics.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027553 | RAPID: Trajectories of Risk and Resilience in the Health and Psychological Adjustment of College Students in Response to COVID-19 | BCS | DS -Developmental Sciences | 05/15/2020 | 05/14/2020 | Hyeouk Hahm | MA | Trustees of Boston University | Standard Grant | Peter Vishton | 04/30/2021 | $127,700.00 | Cindy Liu | [email protected] | 881 COMMONWEALTH AVE | BOSTON | MA | 022151300 | 6173534365 | SBE | 1698 | 096Z, 1698, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has produced major disruptions of physical and mental health and of economic stability. Previous research on pandemics and their impacts on society has rarely documented the consequences or risk/protective factors of acute mental health outcomes of young adults in the United States. This study will assess the self-identity, health, and psychological well-being of young adults during and after the pandemic. These young adults will be a critical part of the U.S. workforce in future decades, and the functioning of our society will depend on how they emerge from this pandemic. This study will also explore the extent to which income level and minority status influence the effects of the pandemic on health outcomes and will identify factors associated with high levels of risk and resilience. In turn, this will help create new integrated young adult mental health interventions to mitigate the challenges caused by COVID-19 and similar future disrupting events. <br/><br/>Using a prospective cohort design, this project will address three fundamental research challenges. First, it will determine trajectories of the mental/physical health status of diverse young adults based on their gender, income, and ethnicity/race in responses to the current pandemic. Second, it will identify risk and protective factors for specific mental disorders (e.g., depressive disorder, anxiety disorder, PTSD). Third, it will assess young adults? pandemic experience and their efforts to overcome the challenges presented by COVID-19 by conducting qualitative in-depth interviews. Outcomes from this study will elaborate development theory in ways that can help design an integrated response to the pandemic that improves health and psychological outcomes among young adults.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029292 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Relationships, social distancing, social media and the spread of COVID-19 | SES | AIB-Acctble Institutions&Behav, Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace | 05/15/2020 | 05/11/2020 | Katherine Ognyanova | NJ | Rutgers University New Brunswick | Standard Grant | Jan Leighley | 04/30/2021 | $99,840.00 | [email protected] | 33 Knightsbridge Road | Piscataway | NJ | 088543925 | 8489320150 | SBE | 120Y, 8060 | 025Z, 065Z, 096Z, 7434, 7914 | $0.00 | This project seeks to improve the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic by launching large-scale data collection through a rolling national survey linked to individual social media data. We generate information useful to policymakers and local authorities and offer near-real-time state-by-state disease tracking. Our data allow officials to understand where the virus is currently spreading, facilitating improved allocation of resources. We also evaluate the networked nature of the disease, tracking its flow based on the reported social relationships of the survey participants and their social distancing behaviors. The project captures how well the information and communication needs of Americans are met during this crisis, observes patterns of citizen compliance with government recommendations, stay-at-home orders, and enforced lockdowns, and assesses their impact on suppressing the spread of the virus among diverse populations.<br/><br/>The project has two core objectives: (1) producing information that will be immediately useful in improving the national response to COVID-19; and (2) using COVID-19 data to understand how people adapt to and make sense of a national crisis that has important and immediate ramifications for their daily lives. We rely on a large-scale, rolling national survey that is conducted on a daily basis, with approximately 3000 respondents per day. We also link the survey data to the social media behavior of respondents. The large sample sizes collected daily offers near-real-time state-by-state disease tracking, as well as the ability to observe key differences in responses to policies across demographic groups. The design will capture how people use technology to work, get informed, and stay connected, and respondents? financial difficulties, employment experiences, and parenting and educational challenges in response to the pandemic.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028055 | RAPID: Working and Teaching from Home in New York State amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic | SES | Sociology | 05/01/2020 | 04/20/2020 | Amy Lutz | NY | Syracuse University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $97,058.00 | [email protected] | OFFICE OF SPONSORED PROGRAMS | SYRACUSE | NY | 132441200 | 3154432807 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, schools in New York State have been closed since mid-March and many workers are also working from home. This creates unique stressors for parents who are struggling to oversee their children?s education while doing their normal jobs from home or working as an essential worker. Most of these parents have no previous experience with this form of homeschooling and many are working with their children to complete online schooling content. Also, many parents have limited experience working from home. This project will interview parents about their experiences with work and this form of homeschooling in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. Key research questions include: Who is overseeing children?s at-home work? Are there gendered patterns to overseeing children?s schoolwork and how do they present themselves? Do parents and children have adequate technology at home to both work and do schoolwork at home in the context of online educational plans? How do parents balance their work and school arrangements? How do parents organize their day around children?s schoolwork and work? What stressors do parents face in this new arrangement? Do parents have adequate support from schools and teachers to provide for implementing their children?s at-home learning? Findings from the project will inform both educational and business leaders regarding the challenges that are involved in teleworking and this form of homeschooling simultaneously, thus enabling better response to the current pandemic as well as better preparedness for future events that may require this combination activities at home. <br/><br/>The COVID-19 pandemic has changed both working and educational arrangements for many families in the United States. This project will conduct qualitative phone interviews of parents in and around Syracuse, New York, who are teaching their K-12 children at home while also working. Fifty or more parents will be identified through snowball sampling and the use of a parenting Facebook page that has wide use throughout the Syracuse area. Using the Facebook site will help to obtain a more diverse sample than snowball sampling alone could produce. Interviews will be conducted using open-ended questions including follow-up questions as necessary. Interviews will be recorded and transcribed. The project will use the online qualitative software Dedoose and flexible coding techniques to code the interviews, followed by analytic coding. The project will also identify the central stories in the data. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories regarding work and family arrangements, especially within the context of household combinations of teleworking and homeschooling.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2032203 | RAPID: Location Tracking, Contact Tracing and Geospatial Privacy in COVID-19 | BCS | Human-Envi & Geographical Scis | 06/01/2020 | 06/04/2020 | Peter Kedron | AZ | Arizona State University | Standard Grant | Scott Freundschuh | 05/31/2021 | $47,565.00 | [email protected] | ORSPA | TEMPE | AZ | 852816011 | 4809655479 | SBE | 141Y | 096Z, 1352, 7914 | $0.00 | Public health systems in the United States have the ability to conduct manual contact tracing; however they do not have the capacity to trace individuals at the scale needed to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, work is underway to develop contact tracing applications that use the mobile tracking technologies (e.g., GPS, Bluetooth) in personal devices to gather, store, and retrieve an individual?s location and contact history. This project assesses the technological limits of mobile location tracking applications being used in COVID1-19 for contact tracing by public health officials to mitigate COVID-19. At the same time this research will address questions of geospatial privacy, including 1) notice-and-consent to location data collection, and 2) risk of personal identification. The project will provide data and results that are needed to develop more effective contact tracing systems. The databases and publications created by this research will contribute to an informed public debate about the role contact tracing should play during different phases of the pandemic.<br/><br/>As public health officials expand contact tracing systems in response to COVID-19, it is essential to know when and where those systems are likely to be most accurate. To meet these needs, this project will catalog and evaluate the contact tracking technologies as they are deployed and developed across the United States. Comparative studies across states will facilitate the identification of the technologies and practices that are most effective in different regional environments. More broadly, this research will fill the gap in geospatial privacy literature by addressing geospatial privacy of newly evolving mobile location tracking technologies and how these technologies can contribute to the health and welfare of sociey.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028034 | RAPID: Emerging Adults? Daily Well-Being, Social Experiences, and Academic Persistence in the Context of the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | DS -Developmental Sciences | 05/01/2020 | 05/11/2020 | Adrienne Nishina | CA | University of California-Davis | Standard Grant | Peter Vishton | 04/30/2021 | $131,978.00 | Alysha Hall, Michael Medina, Diana Meter | [email protected] | OR/Sponsored Programs | Davis | CA | 956186134 | 5307547700 | SBE | 1698 | 096Z, 1698, 7914 | $0.00 | Rapid societal shifts associated with the COVID-19 pandemic have necessitated that education move online. Such shifts also increase students? exposure to online discrimination, which can in turn negatively impact students? academic performance and development. Prior research suggests that discrimination can push students away from pursuing STEM careers at a moment when a diverse, interdisciplinary STEM workforce is critical to confronting complex scientific challenges. In traditional in-person educational settings, positive interactions with diverse classmates and instructors can facilitate the maintenance of cognitive performance, educational attainment, and STEM participation despite negative experiences. Whether these positive interactions transfer to an online context, and whether they similarly buffer the effects of discrimination, is less understood. This study captures important daily variations in students? well-being and academic outcomes that can inform future university practices regarding education and student wellness during crises. The findings may be of particular interest to educational institutions that have been forced to quickly shift to online instruction. As the COVID-19 pandemic demonstrates, there is a need for novel ideas and excellent leadership in STEM fields. This study will identify factors that may protect and promote STEM career outcomes.<br/><br/>This project capitalizes on an existing ethnically diverse sample of college STEM majors who previously (pre-pandemic) reported on their daily in-class experiences, well-being, and academic outcomes. The present study collects additional data, using nearly identical methods, across two 7-day cycles. The project aims to: (1) Describe the frequency of daily discrimination experienced by college-aged ethnically diverse STEM majors; (2) Assess the extent to which rates of discrimination differ from their pre-pandemic levels; (3) Examine whether daily discrimination is correlated with STEM students? day-to-day well-being, academic efficacy, and outcome expectations for their future STEM careers; and (4) Explore digital peer and university social supports as moderators of associations between daily discrimination and outcomes in a context of limited in-person interaction. Exploratory open-ended questions will identify participants? educational experiences related to COVID-19.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029792 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Relationships, social distancing, social media and the spread of COVID-19 | SES | AIB-Acctble Institutions&Behav, Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace | 05/15/2020 | 05/11/2020 | Matthew Baum | MA | Harvard University | Standard Grant | Jan Leighley | 04/30/2021 | $100,000.00 | [email protected] | 1033 MASSACHUSETTS AVE | Cambridge | MA | 021385369 | 6174955501 | SBE | 120Y, 8060 | 025Z, 065Z, 096Z, 7434, 7914 | $0.00 | This project seeks to improve the national response to the COVID-19 pandemic by launching large-scale data collection through a rolling national survey linked to individual social media data. We generate information useful to policymakers and local authorities and offer near-real-time state-by-state disease tracking. Our data allow officials to understand where the virus is currently spreading, facilitating improved allocation of resources. We also evaluate the networked nature of the disease, tracking its flow based on the reported social relationships of the survey participants and their social distancing behaviors. The project captures how well the information and communication needs of Americans are met during this crisis, observes patterns of citizen compliance with government recommendations, stay-at-home orders, and enforced lockdowns, and assesses their impact on suppressing the spread of the virus among diverse populations.<br/><br/>The project has two core objectives: (1) producing information that will be immediately useful in improving the national response to COVID-19; and (2) using COVID-19 data to understand how people adapt to and make sense of a national crisis that has important and immediate ramifications for their daily lives. We rely on a large-scale, rolling national survey that is conducted on a daily basis, with approximately 3000 respondents per day. We also link the survey data to the social media behavior of respondents. The large sample sizes collected daily offers near-real-time state-by-state disease tracking, as well as the ability to observe key differences in responses to policies across demographic groups. The design will capture how people use technology to work, get informed, and stay connected, and respondents? financial difficulties, employment experiences, and parenting and educational challenges in response to the pandemic.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027278 | RAPID: The Social and Behavioral Impact of COVID-19 | SES | ER2-Ethical & Responsible Res, Sociology | 04/01/2020 | 04/01/2020 | Beth Red Bird | IL | Northwestern University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 03/31/2021 | $199,474.00 | [email protected] | 750 N. Lake Shore Drive | Chicago | IL | 606114579 | 3125037955 | SBE | 129Y, 1331 | 096Z, 1331, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic is quickly making broad changes to American society. This project surveys the public opinions, attitudes, and behaviors of thousands of Americans in order to map and track the social disruptions caused by the outbreak, economic shutdowns, and responding public policies. The project will enhance understanding of (1) effectiveness of public policy in changing individual behavior to conform with public health recommendations; (2) the ways in which different forms of public communication create understanding about the pandemic and distribute public health recommendations; and (3) social and psychological stress caused by social distance and quarantine. The rise of SARS, MERS, H1N1, and COVID-19 underline the need to understand these phenomena ? not just the epidemiology of pandemics, but the effective social policies and practices that create positive behaviors and mitigate harms. This will not be the last event of its kind, but with a thorough understanding of its effects, we can be better prepared for the next one. As such, the findings will inform governmental policies at several levels. It will also inform civic leaders and residents, thus helping all to mount efforts to mitigate pandemics? effects.<br/><br/>The COVID-19 pandemic has quickly disrupted American life. Surveys of opinions and attitudes and behaviors can track both these social disruptions and responses to them. The project utilizes an internet panel of 500 respondents, recruited daily throughout the period of contagion increase, for a total of 7,000 respondents. The sample is nationally representative, with an oversample of individuals over age 55. Once the peak number of cases has passed, daily sample size will be reduced to 250 respondents per day, for another sample totaling 7,500. To ensure representation, the project will utilize quota sampling with post-stratification weighting. Survey responses will be matched with local health department data, including number of tests, confirmed cases, and fatalities, as well as other policy data, including school closures, gubernatorial announcements and orders, and state-level legislative actions. By including geographic measures, the project will ensure future researchers will be able to explore how community actions affected respondents? attitudes, well-being, and public health behaviors. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories regarding scientific knowledge, inequality, political institutions, community, stress and social trust.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2030569 | RAPID: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL CONSEQUENCES OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC FOR LOW INCOME, LATE MIDDLE-AGED AFRICAN AMERICANS | SES | Sociology | 06/01/2020 | 06/08/2020 | Leslie Simons | GA | University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 05/31/2021 | $200,000.00 | Chalandra Bryant | [email protected] | 310 East Campus Rd | ATHENS | GA | 306021589 | 7065425939 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has fostered a number of dramatic social changes, including sheltering in place and job loss for millions of Americans. The African American community has been disproportionately impacted. As African American families struggle with self-quarantine, a faltering economy, and high rates of infection, there is a need for detailed information regarding how they are coping, and a need to identify resources they are successfully or unsuccessfully accessing. This project will build on an on-going longitudinal survey of African Americans living in the South and Midwest to evaluate the effects of the pandemic on family functioning and well-being. Findings will inform policies of governmental and private agencies tasked with providing support to citizens during extreme events. These findings will aid in recovery from the current crisis and provide information as to how to better prepare for another pandemic or similar emergency, thus promoting safety, security and well-being in our society. <br/><br/><br/>The COVID-19 pandemic has had a disproportionately negative impact on the African-American community. This project will investigate the impact of financial hardship and self-quarantine using a longitudinal data set comprised of close to 500 middle-age African Americans living in the South and Midwest (250 married, 74 live alone, 174 live in multigenerational households). This data set currently consists of eight waves of data collected over 25 years, with the most recent wave completed in 2019. It includes data regarding work, economic hardship, family relationships, social support, religious activities, and psychological well-being over several waves, thus forming a baseline in assessing the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic. These baseline data provide a unique opportunity to assess the degree of change in various domains of life following self-quarantine and unemployment, including emotional well-being (anxiety, depression, anger, loneliness) and, in turn, quality of family interaction and involvement in risky behaviors such as smoking, heavy alcohol consumption, and an unhealthy diet. The project will also analyze whether the pandemic?s impact on economic hardship, family relationships, and emotional well-being vary by social class and by household composition. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories of family functioning, including the family stress model.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029990 | RAPID: Impacts of COVID-19 Pandemic on Rural Attitudes about Federal Aid and Recovery | SES | Sociology | 06/01/2020 | 06/07/2020 | Justin Farrell | CT | Yale University | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 05/31/2021 | $178,698.00 | [email protected] | Office of Sponsored Projects | New Haven | CT | 065208327 | 2037854689 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The scale of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitated historic action by the federal government to stem social and economic fallout, as demonstrated by federal relief programs exceeding $2.2 trillion. These and other federal interventions in the U.S. economy and society represent a potential shift in the role of government. Yet public opposition to federal programs is historically strong in many rural areas of the country. Given the magnitude of the pandemic, how will this crisis affect long standing attitudes towards federal aid programs and the role of government in society in rural areas? Furthermore, how will public attitudes towards federal aid in rural communities shape how much aid is allocated, what form it takes, and how it is received by rural communities? This project examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on public attitudes towards federal aid and the role of government in rural U.S. communities. Findings from the project will be useful to leaders at several levels of government as they work with their communities to distribute aid to facilitate recovery. As such, the findings will also be useful to leaders within the context of future pandemics or other extreme events, thus promoting U.S. safety and security. <br/><br/>The COVID-19 pandemic has necessitated historic investment in federal relief programs, and yet such programs have often been viewed negatively in rural areas of the country. This project will address this development through a new two-wave representative survey of residents in rural communities across eleven states in the western United States (Arizona, California, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming). Each wave will consist of 1,200 respondents and will be conducted through a mix of telephone and online outreach by a professional survey firm. The first wave will be conducted immediately, in the midst of the pandemic, and the second wave in spring 2021. The survey will be supplemented with 33 semi-structured interviews (three per state) with government staff, elected officials, and NGO leaders, all based in counties sampled through the survey. These interviews will augment information from rural communities and will provide a macro-level picture of how communities have been impacted by the pandemic. Findings from the project will inform sociological theories related to changes in social ideology in the context of extreme events, as well as theories explaining political and moral identities. In addition, the project integrates findings and concepts related to heretofore largely distinct literatures, one involving rural sociology and the other involving disaster research.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2033008 | RAPID: Mapping Integral Human Behavior Changes and Resiliency in Response to COVID-19 | BCS | Cultural Anthropology | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Jonathan Maupin | AZ | Arizona State University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 11/30/2020 | $9,977.00 | Julia Ivanova, Alyssa Hart, Gage Reitzel | [email protected] | ORSPA | TEMPE | AZ | 852816011 | 4809655479 | SBE | 1390 | 096Z, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | During the COVID-19 pandemic, encouraged human behaviors such as social distancing and wearing of masks have become key methods to control the spread of the disease. While individuals may be presented with suggested behavioral changes and prompts daily, how individuals perceive these recommendations within their local, national, and global context can influence how they assess disease risk and whether they respond to recommendations in their daily lives. By pairing variability in individual and community disease perception with news data, this research aims to model efficacy and success of different human behaviors to halt the spread of disease. This project uses social network analysis to understand what networks help or hinder behavioral changes during a pandemic, with the aim of identifying adaptations that impact stress resistance and resiliency. The project provides training for graduate and undergraduate students in methods of rigorous, scientific data collection and analysis. <br/><br/>The research will be conducted in three main phases to address two issues: (1) how human behavioral changes are affecting the spread of COVID-19, and (2) what integral behavioral changes appear to have the greatest influence on resiliency to a pandemic disaster. In the first phase, researchers in a major metropolitan area will conduct an observation-based analysis using picture and field note evidence at open essential businesses. This phase will provide a basis for local and national trends. In the second phase, researchers will recruit from a range of more remote locations for the purposes of understanding larger social networks. Participants will fill out a risk-perception survey, schedule an interview with researchers, and, if interested, will participate in forwarding their own photographic evidence and field notes following research guidelines. In the third phase, a systematic news media analysis will be conducted from November 2019 through the continuation of the project. Such a review will focus on a pool of accessible news sources that will provide a way of tracking human behavioral changes and recommendations from the beginning of the pandemic, onwards. Using frameworks from disaster, anthropology, identity, and social network research, this study will provide information that may be actively utilized in epidemiological efforts to address the spread of COVID-19. Additionally, this research project aims to develop a functioning dynamic model of identified effective human behaviors to be useful in planning pandemic responses currently and in the future.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027923 | RAPID: Tuskegee University COVID Aware Program | SES | HBCU-EiR - HBCU-Excellence in | 06/01/2020 | 06/01/2020 | Crystal James | AL | Tuskegee University | Standard Grant | Sara Kiesler | 05/31/2021 | $199,479.00 | [email protected] | 1200 W Montgomery Road | Tuskegee Institute | AL | 360881923 | 3347278233 | SBE | 070Y | 025Z, 096Z, 1594, 7434, 7914, 9102, 9150 | $0.00 | Because of the ever-evolving nature of COVID-19 information and need for a nationwide response to prevention and containment methods recommended by public health experts, there is an urgent need for all communities including underrepresented minorities to trust and implement these prevention and containment methods. This project is focused on understanding how minority communities? access and attend to these disease prevention messages during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, with potential for understanding their responses to future pandemics and disasters as well. This project will design and test culturally-sensitive tools and materials that promote disease prevention. Based on the successful outcome of this research project, the disease prevention strategies developed can be institutionalized by federal, state, and local agencies. The data may bear on the trustworthiness of communications to minority communities in the deep south. The findings have the capacity to positively affect the diversity of materials, and reduce the levels of mistrust that do exist within minority communities across the deep south. Results from this project will be disseminated in journals and at conferences. Materials produced by the project will be made available to practitioners and other researchers. Students will be trained as part of this project.<br/><br/>This proposal is for research to mitigate the negative impacts of COVID-19 on public health, society, and the economy. The objective of this proposal is to determine the best ways of disseminating disease prevention messages to rural African Americans and other vulnerable populations. The central hypotheses are that minorities have doubts regarding the trustworthiness of these messages and that mistrust can delay the effectiveness of, and innovations in, disease prevention methods. Magnifying and/or delaying disease prevention interventions can lead to increased morbidity and mortality in the this population. The research is non-clinical in nature and involves a multi-state (Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana) data collection effort using a newly constructed instrument to assess residents? level of trust and fear related to disease transmission and where and how they prefer to receive information regarding prevention and treatment strategies. The project will provide health and other organizations with unique information and data on how minority communities access and attend to disease prevention messages and pandemic outbreaks.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028160 | RAPID: Coupled Contagion, Behavior-Change, and the Dynamics of Pro- and Anti-Social Behavior During the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | Cultural Anthropology | 05/01/2020 | 04/27/2020 | James Jones | CA | Stanford University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 04/30/2021 | $197,622.00 | Michelle Kline, Paul Smaldino, Cristina Moya, Zack Almquist | [email protected] | 450 Jane Stanford Way | Stanford | CA | 943052004 | 6507232300 | SBE | 1390 | 096Z, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | The current COVID-19 pandemic involves both tremendous risk and tremendous uncertainty about that risk, at unprecedented scales and across demographic and cultural contexts. How individuals interpret, understand, and respond to that risk have important implications for the transmission of the COVID-19 virus, SARS-CoV-2. This research leverages the ubiquity of SARS-CoV-2 amid varying community, regional, and national responses to test theories about the transmission of behavioral norms, linking individual characteristics (identities, homophily, transmission biases such as conformity or prestige risk management, and demographics), sources of information about the virus, and effects on transmission. Coupled contagion modeling has tended to be limited to demonstration of concept. The incorporation of real time behavioral response data in the modeling of couple contagion improves prospects for improved epidemic control through the promotion of pro-social behavior. This project will train students from under-represented minorities and a post-doctoral scholar in epidemiology. Results will be made immediately available to the public and will inform development of educational material. <br/><br/>This project will study the coupled contagion dynamics of COVID-19 and related behavioral responses, including (but not limited to) increased hygiene (e.g., hand-washing), social distancing, social gathering (purposeful resistance to distancing), hoarding of supplies, and signaling of either alarm or defiance in response to official reports of threat. Investigators will collect data longitudinally in three waves starting from severe non-pharmaceutical interventions such as "lockdowns" through the expected course of the epidemic. Surveys will assess risk-reduction behaviors, compliance with public-health mandates, and hypothesized predictors of response including trust in various institutions, social capital, and sources of news and information. To complement the empirical data collection, the investigators will develop and analyze mathematical and simulation-based models that jointly track the dynamics of virus transmission and behavior change. The models will be parameterized with data collected in the survey. Particular focus will be given to the consequences of behaviors driven by conflicting messages about seriousness and the appropriateness of different types of interventions for disease transmission. An important goal of this modeling is to develop insights for improving public-health interventions, motivating compliance, and ensuring that effective and accessible information about the virus is available to the public.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027598 | RAPID: A Comparative Study of How Context Shapes Responses to COVID-19 | SES | Science & Technology Studies, EPSCoR Co-Funding | 05/01/2020 | 04/20/2020 | Wesley Shrum | LA | Louisiana State University | Standard Grant | Frederick Kronz | 04/30/2021 | $100,218.00 | [email protected] | 202 Himes Hall | Baton Rouge | LA | 708032701 | 2255782760 | SBE | 124Y, 9150 | 096Z, 7914, 9150 | $0.00 | The primary objective of this collaborative RAPID research project is to further our understanding of how cultural and political contexts shape the ways people perceive and respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team will conduct 400 interviews across multiple urban and rural areas for an analysis oriented towards understanding how individuals construct and modify their perceptions given information from a wide variety of sources and their network of interactions with friends and family. The results of this project will provide a deeper understanding of the social mechanisms that shape perceptions and behaviors to public policy responses in culturally and politically diverse contexts. Perceptions of disease (i.e., perceived seriousness, susceptibility, and threat) shape perceived barriers and benefits to action, which in turn affect behavior. While it is given that these perceptions are important to understand health-related behaviors as well as support for various treatments and actions, it is crucial to understand how these perceptions are generated. The project interviews and the analysis are to be widely distributed to provide grounded guidance for policy makers and others seeking to understand the diversity of fears, risk perceptions, preparedness, and acceptable actions in pandemics.<br/><br/>The research team will collect qualitative and quantitative data on groups selected for their importance to pandemic processes (transmission and treatment of information and infectious agents). The groups are stratified into five categories: scientists, medical professionals, teachers, the informal sector, and the unemployed. The purposes of the Interviews are to Identify the principal sources of information about COVID-19 transmission, treatment, and risk, including both new and old media as well as the factors associated with their relative importance across regions, occupations, and rural/urban areas; to examine factors that impact the credibility of sources in both absolute and relative terms; and to assess the level of knowledge and preparation for COVID-19 transmission, treatment, and risk. They will be used to Identify primary fears and concerns relevant to the current spectrum of treatment, isolation, and containment technologies. The results of this project will contribute to an understanding of the different ways cultural and political contexts shape response to outbreak information and directives, and they will provide guidance for policy makers seeking to understand these differences.<br/><br/>This project is jointly funded by the Science and Technology Studied Program, and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027822 | RAPID: Factors that affect understanding the risks of COVID-19 | BCS | Perception, Action & Cognition | 04/01/2020 | 04/03/2020 | John Jonides | MI | University of Michigan Ann Arbor | Standard Grant | Betty Tuller | 03/31/2021 | $200,000.00 | Richard Lewis, Priti Rasiklal Shah | [email protected] | 3003 South State St. Room 1062 | Ann Arbor | MI | 481091274 | 7347636438 | SBE | 7252 | 096Z, 7252, 7914 | $0.00 | The threat of the COVID-19 virus has not been clearly understood by a substantial portion of the U.S. population. Many people have been slow to adopt attitudes and behaviors that will serve to mitigate the risks of the pandemic. With all the publicity that the virus has engendered, how can this be so? The researchers hypothesize that these failures to change attitude and behavior stem from three factors: failures to realize the impact that this disease has, failures to realize how quickly it will be transmitted, and failures to appreciate the dire consequences it will have on the health care system. In this study, the researcher will examine factors underlying these failures and ways to improve delivery of information relevant to COVID-19. Results and suggestions for improving communication and comprehension are expected to be disseminated widely and expeditiously.<br/><br/>In order to investigate ways of improving the understanding of the risks involving COVID-19, the researchers, a highly experienced and inter-disciplinary team, propose three lines of research. They will examine (a) how different ways of presenting information about the proliferation of the disease affects people?s estimates of its incidence and rates of death, as well as intended future social behavior, (b) how individual differences among individuals and countries along demographic and trait dimensions will influence their estimates of the spread of the disease, and (c) how people are reasoning about the impact of the disease on the viability of the healthcare system. Methods will include measuring the ability to predict risk and consequences of the disease as well as the impact of ?flattening the curve? as functions of several variables, including mode of information presentation, numeracy, motivation, health status, and other demographic and trait variables.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027225 | RAPID: Community-wide acquisition of medical knowledge about COVID-19 under conditions of risk and uncertainty | BCS | Sci of Lrng & Augmented Intel | 04/01/2020 | 03/31/2020 | Alin Coman | NJ | Princeton University | Standard Grant | Soo-Siang Lim | 03/31/2021 | $189,833.00 | [email protected] | Off. of Research & Proj. Admin. | Princeton | NJ | 085442020 | 6092583090 | SBE | 127Y | 059Z, 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | The response to the COVID-19 pandemic may depend critically on how communities of individuals acquire and propagate medical information. This is especially true given the many and frequent updates of medical information transmission, treatment and containment strategies. Although the diffusion of knowledge has been studied previously, very few models incorporate psychologically grounded assumptions about knowledge search, acquisition, and propagation. Specifically, they do not fully consider (1) that information propagation is influenced by the communicative context, (2) that it is critically affected in high-anxiety, high-uncertainty environments, and (3) that results obtained in dyadic level paradigms cannot simply be extrapolated to large social networks. The integration of these advances will address three key questions: First, how does the high perceived risk of infection influence the lay public?s acquisition and propagation of medical information in social networks? Second, how do emotion, social distancing practices, and media consumption impact medical knowledge acquisition and propagation? And third, what socio-cognitive strategies could one employ to increase the spread of accurate information and to diminish the diffusion of misinformation in social networks? Findings from this study could inform the development of infrastructure and practices to better prepare the population for medical crises. <br/><br/>The COVID-19 pandemic provides an urgent opportunity to investigate the acquisition and propagation of medical knowledge in social networks under conditions of high perceived risk of viral infection. This project uses developments in cognitive psychology, social psychology, and network science to address these critical issues. This cross-disciplinary approach will relate individual-level processes to community-wide acquisition of medical knowledge. Online communities will be assembled, and individuals will engage in a sequence of networked conversations about their knowledge of COVID-19. These interactions will occur using a computer-mediated tool, SoPHIE (Software Platform for Human Interaction Experiments), that allows for seamless communication in conversational networks, designed according to experimenter-specified parameters. Individual knowledge will be measured before and after networked conversations, and the conversational network structure will be manipulated together with the threshold at which people are willing to provide and accept information from others. Advances from this project will be of interest to scientists for modeling optimal information diffusion in social networks and to public health officials interested in disseminating accurate information to the public in their efforts to save lives during times of turmoil.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027094 | RAPID: Evolution of Public Risk Perception and Mental Models Regarding COVID-19 | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 04/01/2020 | 03/30/2020 | Andrew Parker | CA | Rand Corporation | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 03/31/2021 | $199,717.00 | Melissa Finucane, Katherine Carman | [email protected] | 1776 MAIN ST | Santa Monica | CA | 904013297 | 3103930411 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | In crises such as the emergence of COVID-19, the public is a critical response partner. Novel threats are concerning to the public, but often poorly understood, with misunderstanding leading to inappropriate reactions. Clarifying when and why misperceptions occur is important because resulting behavior can contribute to disease spread, supply shortages, and unnecessary health-care system burden. Central are individual mental models, intuitive theories made up of related beliefs or perceptions individuals have about a risk, which may or may not align with scientific consensus. Mental models form a foundation for how people conceive risk, structure decisions, and their risk-related behaviors. This project follows individuals? risk perceptions, mental models, and risk behaviors over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic, capitalizing on a time-sensitive opportunity to push forward the science on public risk responses to crises, within a concrete public health context. <br/><br/>The primary goal is to longitudinally track risk perceptions, mental models, and risk-related behaviors within individuals over the course of the COVID-19 pandemic. Secondary goals are to develop new methodological approaches to process and analyze large-sample mental models data and engage experts on our approach and needs for larger infrastructure. The project leverages existing data and planned survey data collection, building out a longitudinal assessment to be able to capture changes in risk perceptions, mental models, and behaviors. The surveys use freelisting, a simple free-association technique from anthropology, to gather a large-sample picture of people?s risk mental models. The research team employs automated lexical analysis tools to process the data and network analytic techniques to map out the mental models. The team uses regression analysis to examine relationships among mental models, risk perceptions, behavior, and their change over time.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2032407 | RAPID: Understanding the Process of Social Change through the Transitional Period of the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | COVID-19 Research | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Katherine Mason | RI | Brown University | Standard Grant | Jeffrey Mantz | 05/31/2021 | $19,015.00 | Yifeng Cai | [email protected] | BOX 1929 | Providence | RI | 029129002 | 4018632777 | SBE | 158Y | 096Z, 1390, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | Effective management of COVID-19 requires public adherence to directives reliant on behavior change. This research will investigate how diverse groups of individuals understand, process, and react to risk and uncertainty posed by COVID-19, at both a personal and a collective level. It examines how social changes are impacted by the complex, often contradictory and emotion-laden communications about the pandemic. Special attention will be given to impacts of a perceived change in the projected course of the pandemic amidst concern about the future. Under these conditions, how do people modify their life projects or demonstrate resiliency? Results from the work will be communicated directly to health experts to ensure that insights will be relevant to current and subsequent waves of the pandemic. The research will provide training for a graduate and an undergraduate student in social epidemiological research. <br/><br/>This research augments processual models of social change through the addition of large-scale data from a diverse population during the pandemic. This theory posits a sequence of changes involving a period of break-down, followed by a transitional period that is navigated through human relationships, and culminating with the establishment of new social orders and structures. Using media analysis, and repeated waves of ethnographic observation and interviewing, the researchers will collect data that address how individual variation in the consumption of knowledge, affective states, and ideologies affect the timing and sequential elements of social change, and how such variation ultimately drives the behaviors that affect disease transmission (e.g., wearing masks, observing social distancing). The work provides a novel test of this sequence in communities displaying varying levels of commitment to collectivist ideologies and social order.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030830 | RAPID: Effective Recovery for Organizations from the COVID-19: Optimizing Strategic Responses | SES | SoO-Science Of Organizations | 05/15/2020 | 05/11/2020 | Gwendolyn Lee | FL | University of Florida | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $120,925.00 | Mo Wang | [email protected] | 1 UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA | GAINESVILLE | FL | 326112002 | 3523923516 | SBE | 8031 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | How do business organizations recover from a crisis? Studies of crises show that human communities differ significantly in their responses; a crisis presents individual organizations and communities of organizations with a common problem, yet solutions may be elusive. This project will advance basic knowledge about the effectiveness of organizational recovery in response to the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic crisis. The project will help organizations and managers to better understand the conditions under which organizations responding to a crisis of unprecedented magnitude may recover more effectively. Results will equip organizations and managers with knowledge and skills about how to choose strategic responses to crisis, by highlighting the insights derived from study conditions. In collaboration with the University of Florida Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, the project will disseminate results to business and scientific communities by providing free-of-charge webinars that explain to managers and researchers the strategic responses that can help organizations, particularly small-and-medium sized enterprises, to more effectively recover from the current crisis. Project findings and activities will help to ensure the economic competitiveness of the United States and promote our nation's safety and security. <br/> <br/>When crises occur, business organizations need to move strategically to recover, but leaders and managers may be unclear as to which actions to take. The project will provide prescriptive theoretical directions for the development of processes and actions toward effective recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic and global economic crisis. The project will classify, explain, and evaluate organizations? strategic responses to the current crisis for effective recovery and answer three research questions: First, among the multiple paths toward organizational recovery, which ones are more effective? Second, what organizational and environmental factors are most conducive to effective recovery? Third, would dynamic adaptation (e.g., switching resource allocation from the organization?s own rebuilding to community-based self-organizing efforts, and vice versa) be effective for recovery? Interview data will be used to inform, validate and improve a computational model designed to explain and evaluate the effectiveness of strategic responses of organizations. The project will use this model to compare a wide range of variation in responses, and probe the conditions under which certain responses could be more effective for organizational recovery. The project will produce: (1) a multi-level taxonomy of strategic responses to crisis for organizational recovery and (2) an explanation and evaluation of strategic responses to crisis for effective recovery. Using a mixed-method approach, the project will not only corroborate a computational model with interview data, but also use the model to extend understanding beyond case observations. Findings will inform theories of organization regarding business strategy, especially within the context of crises and extreme events.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2031101 | RAPID: Stress and Emotional Response to Uncertainty in the COVID-19 Pandemic | BCS | Social Psychology | 06/15/2020 | 06/04/2020 | Maital Neta | NE | University of Nebraska-Lincoln | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 05/31/2021 | $73,189.00 | [email protected] | 151 Prem S. Paul Research Center | Lincoln | NE | 685031435 | 4024723171 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914, 9150 | $0.00 | Many significant social decisions are made in situations of high uncertainty. A person?s ability to resolve such uncertainty can have profound implications for outcomes ranging from health to work performance. Past research has shown that people exhibit reliable tendencies to respond to uncertainty with either positive or negative emotions. These personal biases play a significant role in responding well or poorly to high uncertainty. This project leverages the urgent opportunity presented by the COVID-19 pandemic to advance the understanding of individual-level biases in the context of a societal-level stressor. Very little is currently known about the effects of societal-level stressors, such as a global pandemic, on individual-level trait-like biases. The negative thoughts and feelings some individuals experience in response to extreme societal uncertainty can have deleterious outcomes on health, work performance, and relationships. This project lays the foundation for developing interventions to disrupt these maladaptive processes in favor of more productive responses.<br/><br/>An online study includes three distinct measures of valence bias (the tendency to ascribe uncertainty with a negative meaning). Measures of mood/temperament, resilience, and social factors likely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic (e.g., loneliness) are collected. A subset of participants in the study completed the valence bias tasks before the pandemic (Wave 1). In a longitudinal design, these same participants will be re-assessed at the height of the pandemic (Wave 2) and again after the pandemic ends (Wave 3). By following people over time, it is possible to gauge the effects associated with a greater increase in negativity as a function of the global pandemic, as well as greater recovery after it ends. A new group of participants will be added at Waves 2 and 3 to provide additional data for a cross-sectional exploration of the mechanisms that predict individual differences in valence bias at each time point. Age-related effects will also be explored at each wave. The research considers how people can learn to "do it better" to increase well-being and resilience in response to societal threats and uncertainty. The findings will shed light on how some individuals are able to override stress-related increases in negativity and instead resolve uncertainty in a positive light.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027570 | RAPID: How parenting practices influence child safety thoughts and behaviors in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic | BCS | DS -Developmental Sciences | 05/15/2020 | 05/12/2020 | Emily Kroshus | WA | Seattle Children's Hospital | Standard Grant | Peter Vishton | 04/30/2021 | $199,821.00 | Matt Hawrilenko | [email protected] | 4800 Sand Point Way NE | Seattle | WA | 981053901 | 2069872005 | SBE | 1698 | 096Z, 1698, 7914 | $0.00 | Parenting practices can help limit the impact of COVID-19 in two key ways. First, parents can support children?s implementation of behaviors to reduce virus spread (e.g., hand washing, social distancing, and self-quarantine). Second, parents can help limit child anxiety (e.g., overseeing and discussing media exposure and providing factual and age appropriate information). By understanding the factors that drive differences in these parenting behaviors, this research can help determine how best to support child and family wellness at a population-level during this challenging time. Differences in parenting are likely related to differences in parent perceptions of the threat of the virus to their family and the extent to which they believe they can take steps to limit this threat. This study will also assess how family socioeconomic characteristics such as income, education, occupation, and health literacy relate to threat and coping perceptions, parenting behaviors, and child outcomes. <br/><br/>A nationally representative survey of English and Spanish speaking parents of children aged 6-17 years will address this need with the following aims: (1) describe parenting practices related to COVID-19, (2) determine the extent to which these parenting behaviors are related to differences in parent threat and coping perceptions, and (3) explore and describe the relationship of family socioeconomic characteristics to threat and coping perceptions, child anxiety, and child health behaviors to reduce virus transmission. Results of this study will provide key information about how to target and optimize health communication in the current pandemic context and can identify where structural interventions to address fundamental disparities in social determinants of health may be needed.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027412 | RAPID: Using location-based big-data to model people's mobility patterns during the COVID-19 outbreak | BCS | Geography and Spatial Sciences | 04/01/2020 | 04/02/2020 | Kathleen Stewart | MD | University of Maryland College Park | Standard Grant | Scott Freundschuh | 03/31/2021 | $82,087.00 | Debbie Niemeier, Junchuan Fan | [email protected] | 3112 LEE BLDG 7809 Regents Drive | COLLEGE PARK | MD | 207425141 | 3014056269 | SBE | 1352 | 096Z, 1352, 7914 | $0.00 | The outbreak of COVID-19 in the U.S. provides an important opportunity for researchers to study the impacts of a rapidly expanding pandemic on human mobility. This research investigates how to measure changes in collective movement of people in response to the fast-evolving COVID-19 outbreak using large datasets of passively collected location data. It examines how locations within a state respond to public policy implementation and times of critical public messaging. Detailed knowledge on movement patterns of people can help public officials identify hotspots and critically isolated populations, as well as shed light on those groups who continue to travel for work or other purposes. This research contributes to improving the public response to an emergency and contributes to bridging different stakeholder mitigation strategies.<br/><br/>Detailed knowledge of how people respond to a fast-spreading global pandemic is very limited and our understanding of these responses is mostly for small areas. This research will use a near real-time location-based dataset passively collected through the use of location-based apps during the period of pandemic. The project will develop scalable, big location-based algorithms to extract trips and examine the evolution of mobility patterns throughout the pandemic, and identify different mobility patterns. We will develop map-reduce based distributed algorithms to scale up mobility measure calculations based on the big location-based data as well as develop entropy measures to capture the time-varying characteristics associated with the travel patterns, and design strategies to correct biases that may be present in the location data. The methods and results of this research will be useful for understanding mobility during other hazards that affect communities, such as severe flooding to understand how travel is changed as a result of imperatives stemming from both the hazard and policy directives.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027447 | RAPID: Impacts of COVID-19 Out-of-School Stressors on Executive Function and E- Learning | BCS | 04/15/2020 | 05/15/2020 | Lindsey Richland | CA | University of California-Irvine | Standard Grant | Soo-Siang Lim | 03/31/2021 | $200,000.00 | Justin Richland | [email protected] | 141 Innovation Drive, Ste 250 | Irvine | CA | 926173213 | 9498247295 | SBE | 127y | 059Z, 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | In the midst of COVID-19 pandemic, students are not only facing health concerns, but also other stressors tied to mandated changes in their environments. These include a near-complete reliance on technology for college participation and learning, changes in access to peers and social support networks, changes in works-spaces and possible financial uncertainties. At this juncture of many upheavals, this project will collect data to understand how U.S. undergraduates? experiences of stress may be impacting their ability to learn as universities switch to on-line instruction. High quality learning through online instruction is known to be challenging in the best of times; these difficulties are likely to be exacerbated by the myriad stresses that undergraduates are experiencing now. Focusing on the experiences of undergraduates at a diverse, minority-serving public four-year college, the data collected will assess the relationships between types of stressors, and student learning using e-learning techniques. Gathering this information immediately will be crucial to supporting students as the pandemic continues. Results will have broad impact on improving instructional infrastructure and practices to better support student learning in these stressful times. Moreover, this knowledge will be useful to colleges and universities in the development of effective strategies to meet their students? needs. <br/><br/>Executive Functions (EFs) are crucial to successful learning; these are cognitive resources that control attention, allow students to grapple with complex ideas and hold information in mind. EFs are taxed when students are under stress, leading to increased load on verbal working memory from external concerns or environmental vigilance. The implication is that students experiencing high levels of stress will have fewer EF resources to extend to their learning, potentially made more challenging by lack of familiarity with e-learning. Two time-sensitive field studies will be conducted to gather information about the types of stressors that U.S. undergraduates in a minority-serving public four-year college are facing during the pandemic. The goal is to assess the relative impacts of different stressors (or their combinations) on learning, in order to best design interventions to mitigate damaging effects. Two theory-driven approaches will be assessed as means to counter potential adverse stress impacts: 1) management of attention as a key aspect of executive function, and 2) management and regulation of emotions during learning. In addition to advances in our understanding of how stress affects student learning, findings of this project will help inform institutional responses and instructional design for e-learning courses offered during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. More generally, the work will inform the field?s ability to improve e-learning in future applications.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027745 | RAPID: Cultural Differences in Shaping Diagnostic Testing Regimes in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic | SES | Science & Technology Studies | 05/01/2020 | 04/20/2020 | Shobita Parthasarathy | MI | University of Michigan Ann Arbor | Standard Grant | Frederick Kronz | 04/30/2021 | $100,000.00 | [email protected] | 3003 South State St. Room 1062 | Ann Arbor | MI | 481091274 | 7347636438 | SBE | 124Y | 096Z, 7914, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | The primary objective of this RAPID research project is to further our understanding of the role of political culture in shaping diagnostic testing regimes during the COVID-19 epidemic. The researcher will use qualitative case study methods in four geographical regions. The results of this project will serve to expand our understanding of how political culture shapes the development, implementation, and governance of diagnostic testing particularly during emergencies. It will also help us identify other aspects of political culture including whether citizen responses to and frustrations with emergency diagnostic testing systems take different form across the four regions. Project findings will be widely disseminated to academic, public, and policy audiences. The project will generate articles for academic audiences in the fields of STS, public health, political science, and public policy. Dissemination to the public will be via op-eds and podcast episodes. A white paper will be sent to relevant policymakers. <br/><br/>Research methods include conducting interviews, collecting documents, and doing ethnographic observation; when possible and relevant, ethnographic observation of press conferences and government hearings will also be conducted. Documents, interviews, and ethnographic field notes will comprise the data, which will be analyzed using a grounded theory approach. A ?snowball? sampling strategy will be used to select interview subjects; initial interview subjects will be asked to suggest others for interview. Initial subjects will be identified through the collected documents; important participants in each testing regime will be recorded. For each of the four case studies to be developed, this will likely include government officials involved in developing COVID-19 responses or regulating diagnostic testing regimes; organizations developing and offering testing; and civil society groups attempting to influence public, private, and non-profit sector action.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027652 | RAPID: Examining public spatial behavior during the COVID-19 outbreak | BCS | Geography and Spatial Sciences | 04/15/2020 | 04/01/2020 | Paul Torrens | NY | New York University | Standard Grant | Jacqueline Vadjunec | 03/31/2021 | $199,985.00 | [email protected] | 70 WASHINGTON SQUARE S | NEW YORK | NY | 100121019 | 2129982121 | SBE | 1352 | 096Z, 1352, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has altered the moment-to-moment activities of our daily public lives. Some communities have initiated restrictions on the movement, activities, physical interaction, and socialization of large sections of the population. These actions have been borne of necessity, in a bid to reduce human contact as part of widespread efforts to mitigate the potential spread of the virus. Social distancing measures have taken on a sense of urgency in population-dense metropolitan areas, which host a large portion of the COVID-19 cases. This project will launch a rapid effort to acquire high-resolution data regarding life on streetscapes during the pandemic, with the goal of producing quick-response insight as changes in public spatial behavior unfold. This will be done by capturing and coding immersive, first-person, geolocated video- diaries of metropolitan residents going about their daily streetscape activity, as life shifts to adapt to new social distancing and curfew orders. The data will be disseminated broadly through local community partnerships. Additionally, the project will fund four graduate students in diverse STEM related fields.<br/><br/>This research captures how new forms of spatial behavior emerge, while testing how existing theories of spatial behavior hold under extraordinary circumstances. The central innovation is to focus on individual embodiment in day-to-day streetscape scenes, as revealed in latent and overt spatial behavior through body language in public places. This will be accomplished through first-person video footage of everyday streetscape scenes from a group of recruited volunteers as they go about daily activities during a pandemic. The data will be hand and machine coded to explore patterns of spatial behavior that can indicate relationships between individuals, the built environment, and socio-behavioral phenomena. Emergent relationships will be fine-tuned, using a series of studio-based experiments after the fact, deploying motion capture to methodically and empirically trace-out pathways between non-verbal communication such as gestures and mannerisms, and high-resolution space-time details of spatial behavior, in a controlled setting that utilizes the collected video data as ground truth. To promote broader use of the data and to foster additional research, data will be collated?from both the field and from the studio experiments?using high-resolution space-time Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and virtual geographical environments. These resources will be made publicly available and shared with local partners, with implications for safeguarding public health and wellbeing.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2030074 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Social interactions. social connectedness, and health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic | BCS | COVID-19 Research | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Robert Kraut | PA | Carnegie-Mellon University | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 05/31/2021 | $173,979.00 | Jason Hong | [email protected] | 5000 Forbes Avenue | PITTSBURGH | PA | 152133815 | 4122688746 | SBE | 158Y | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | Good mental and physical health depend on a strong sense of social connectedness. The restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resultant social isolation and loneliness, have caused that connectedness to deteriorate. Despite decades of research, relatively little is known about the characteristics of social interactions that lead to improvements in social connectedness and, ultimately, to improved health. This project seeks to gain better understanding of how social interactions support social connectedness. It examines the effects of the social isolation and psychological distress that result from social distancing and stay-at-home policies. The research considers activities people perform together, the types of people who serve as interaction partners, the emotional tone and the modality of interaction (in person, phone, text, or video). The study uses longitudinal surveys with a nation-wide panel of U.S. adults to assess the ways in which social interactions provide the route through which social ties are maintained, the regulation of relationships occurs, and social support is exchanged. The project will ultimately inform the development of health-related interventions in this and future pandemic situations. <br/><br/>This project seeks to advance theory about how everyday social interactions influence general social connectedness, including loneliness, perceived social support, and strength of social ties. In addition to advancing theory, the research addresses the more immediate need to understand the consequences of social distancing policies. Identifying the most beneficial social interactions can help support just-in-time interventions to improve social connectedness and related public health recommendations. To achieve these goals, the research collects longitudinal survey data over a three-week period in which U.S. adults complete multiple surveys each day to describe the frequency and characteristics of their social interactions. End-of-day surveys measure social connectedness (loneliness, perceived social support, and tie strength) and mental health (positive and negative affect, depression, anxiety, and perceived stress). Statistical techniques for longitudinal data, including structural equation modeling and latent change score analysis, test the relationship between interaction characteristics and the end-of-day surveys. Insight gained by this research will inform future efforts in implementing health-related behavioral change recommendations.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2030017 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Social interactions, social connectedness, and health outcomes during the COVID-19 pandemic | BCS | COVID-19 Research | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Tom Kamarck | PA | University of Pittsburgh | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 05/31/2021 | $8,295.00 | [email protected] | 300 Murdoch Building | Pittsburgh | PA | 152603203 | 4126247400 | SBE | 158Y | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | Good mental and physical health depend on a strong sense of social connectedness. The restrictions of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the resultant social isolation and loneliness, have caused that connectedness to deteriorate. Despite decades of research, relatively little is known about the characteristics of social interactions that lead to improvements in social connectedness and, ultimately, to improved health. This project seeks to gain better understanding of how social interactions support social connectedness. It examines the effects of the social isolation and psychological distress that result from social distancing and stay-at-home policies. The research considers activities people perform together, the types of people who serve as interaction partners, the emotional tone and the modality of interaction (in person, phone, text, or video). The study uses longitudinal surveys with a nation-wide panel of U.S. adults to assess the ways in which social interactions provide the route through which social ties are maintained, the regulation of relationships occurs, and social support is exchanged. The project will ultimately inform the development of health-related interventions in this and future pandemic situations. <br/><br/>This project seeks to advance theory about how everyday social interactions influence general social connectedness, including loneliness, perceived social support, and strength of social ties. In addition to advancing theory, the research addresses the more immediate need to understand the consequences of social distancing policies. Identifying the most beneficial social interactions can help support just-in-time interventions to improve social connectedness and related public health recommendations. To achieve these goals, the research collects longitudinal survey data over a three-week period in which U.S. adults complete multiple surveys each day to describe the frequency and characteristics of their social interactions. End-of-day surveys measure social connectedness (loneliness, perceived social support, and tie strength) and mental health (positive and negative affect, depression, anxiety, and perceived stress). Statistical techniques for longitudinal data, including structural equation modeling and latent change score analysis, test the relationship between interaction characteristics and the end-of-day surveys. Insight gained by this research will inform future efforts in implementing health-related behavioral change recommendations.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028683 | RAPID: Evaluating the Impact of COVID-19 on Labor Market, Social, and Mental Health Outcomes | SES | Methodology, Measuremt & Stats | 05/01/2020 | 05/11/2020 | Daniel Bennett | CA | University of Southern California | Standard Grant | Cheryl Eavey | 04/30/2021 | $200,000.00 | Wandi Bruine de Bruin, Frauke Kreuter, Elizabeth Stuart, Johannes Thrul | [email protected] | University Park | Los Angeles | CA | 900890001 | 2137407762 | SBE | 1333 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | This research project will advance understanding of the economic, social, and mental health toll of the COVID-19 pandemic. The pandemic is quickly eroding the social and economic platform the world is built upon. Quality data must be gathered quickly in order to understand the impact of the pandemic on human life. This project will collect robust data on people's experiences in the U.S. during the pandemic, including data collected quickly via social media platforms. The project also will develop methodology to facilitate the effective use of different data sources. Because experiences both within the U.S. and across countries vary widely, the investigators will collaborate with researchers in five countries outside the U.S. By implementing the same measures of experienced outcomes in similar surveys across the globe, a unique comparison is possible about the effectiveness of the policies that have been implemented across countries. The project results will provide insights for academics, practitioners, and policy makers who are seeking to understand and inform policies to curb the pandemic and its consequences. Data collected by this project, links to other data, and project findings will be made available through dashboards for policy makers, researchers, and the interested public. The investigators will record podcasts and webinars to broadly disseminate the results. Graduate students will be trained in the conduct of collaborative multi-site research.<br/><br/>This project will leverage data collected as part of an ongoing tracking study of American households in the Understanding America Study. Survey data also will be collected via Facebook and Instagram. Research questions to be addressed by the data include: Which policies have helped to reduce anxiety and depression during this pandemic? Which individuals are at greatest risk for economic losses during the pandemic and what measures have helped them the most? How do these economic losses influence willingness to engage in social distancing, and which policies have helped people to stay at home in the face of economic losses? The project also will develop new survey weighting approaches to make use of the simultaneous collection of data with different sampling frames, sampling schemes, and modes. The availability of multiple data sources will allow for the assessment of measurement properties of mental health scales items in need of adaptations to rapidly changing environments. Methods will be developed for causal inference from data combined from different sources to assess the effects of different policy interventions by local areas, states, and countries.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029890 | RAPID: Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic on Crime and Corrections Populations | SES | Law & Science | 05/01/2020 | 04/21/2020 | Daniel Nagin | PA | Carnegie-Mellon University | Standard Grant | Reggie Sheehan | 04/30/2021 | $37,428.00 | Amelia Haviland | [email protected] | 5000 Forbes Avenue | PITTSBURGH | PA | 152133815 | 4122688746 | SBE | 128Y | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | Anecdotal news accounts make clear that the COVID-19 pandemic is having profound impacts on crime and on jail and prison populations in the United States. The short-term reductions in most crimes are consistent with various opportunity-based theories of crime with fewer people on the streets and visiting places like bars. The reports of increased domestic violence align with opportunity-based theories and in addition strain-based theories. Over the longer term, however, the reported crime reduction trends may reverse themselves as people become more economically impacted. Impacts of restricted admissions and accelerated releases from local jails and prisons on crime and on infection rates, within these facilities during this pandemic, are also unknown and of policy interest.<br/><br/> Analyses will be conducted at the level of county and city for crime and jail population impacts and at the level of the state for prison population impacts. To estimate these effects we aim to do difference-in-difference type analyses. The main objectives of this project are to provide a rapid analysis of these impacts on crime and corrections populations to be completed prior to a possible future resurgence of the pandemic, and to share with policymakers rigorous analyses that will assist in informing their decisions in dealing with the crisis.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2031391 | RAPID: Communicating difficult medical choices in a COVID-19 context | BCS | Social Psychology | 06/15/2020 | 06/10/2020 | Paul Conway | FL | Florida State University | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 05/31/2021 | $61,086.00 | [email protected] | 874 Traditions Way, 3rd Floor | TALLAHASSEE | FL | 323064166 | 8506445260 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | Amidst the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare providers face the challenge of how to make and communicate extremely difficult medical decisions. If medical decision-makers focus primarily on logic rather than emotion, they risk appearing callous, eroding public trust in the medical system and fostering negative reactions to medical advice. Yet, dire medical treatment situations might mandate a 'strict utilitarian' approach ? one that focuses on saving the most lives by prioritizing care for patients with the best chance of survival. This may in turn produce a disconnect between the medical community and the public, since research shows that people tend to trust decision-makers who express emotional concern for individuals rather than the logic-based sacrificial judgment of saving lives overall. Thus, during the pandemic, healthcare providers overwhelmed by virus patients face an additional challenge: how to communicate about their medical decisions. If they focus mainly on their decision making without an emotional recognition of the situation, they may appear overly logical and not sufficiently emotional, thereby undermining trust in the medical community. When the public loses trust in the healthcare system, medical advice such as wearing masks or engaging in social distancing may be ignored. A better understanding of medical decision making and its communication can help shape future approaches to dealing with such dire situations in a way that maximizes the health-related outcomes for society. <br/><br/>This project directly compares how healthcare providers versus laypeople view difficult and controvesial medical decision-making. The research tests the hypothesis that laypeople exonerate healthcare providers who communicate moral character by displaying a combination of emotional concern for individual targets (the patients who are very ill or dying) together with a logical focus on the big picture (reducing overall deaths). The research also tests the hypothesis that during the height of the crisis, people view the pandemic as similar to fighting a war, which makes medical sacrifices to treat the most patients seem more acceptable. As the crisis fades over time, however, people may no longer experience such a wartime mentality. If so, then some people may change their mind about healthcare providers? medical decisions. To test these hypotheses, the research examines how the public views medical professionals? sacrificial decisions near the height of the crisis and again one year later. Results will suggest communication strategies that healthcare providers can use to communicate moral concern when making difficult medical choices. The project includes development of a short video describing study results and recommending communication strategies.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2031052 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Providing useable COVID-19 health information to linguistically underserved people | BCS | Linguistics | 05/15/2020 | 05/18/2020 | Shobhana Chelliah | TX | University of North Texas | Standard Grant | Joan Maling | 10/31/2021 | $85,774.00 | Sara Champlin | [email protected] | 1155 Union Circle #305250 | Denton | TX | 762035017 | 9405653940 | SBE | 1311 | 096Z, 1311, 7914, SMET | $0.00 | This project uses language documentation methodology to explore effective communication of COVID-19 health-related information to linguistically underserved populations in the US. Such communities may not have access to reliable health information in their native languages. Researchers can translate information from English into other languages, but translation alone cannot ensure information is presented in ways that are culturally appropriate and therefore maximally effective. The future path and possible resurgence of this pandemic remains unknown, so it is critical to learn about group health perceptions and behaviors in order to create best practices for developing critical informational materials for these underserved populations. Scientific investigation of languages for these populations provides the bridge between health information and cultural context.<br/><br/>Linguists and health information experts will work with a linguistically underserved community to collect personal and group reflections, eliciting highly emotive connected speech on topics rarely collected in language documentation projects. The collected speech samples will potentially include rare vocabulary, idioms, ritual language, songs, and remembered practices that underlie beliefs and motivate health behavior. In-language interviews will be conducted by first-generation native speakers who are undergraduate students and community members. The project will create: (1) video-conferencing technology protocols for language documentation fieldwork; (2) a unique corpus of interlinear glossed texts (personal accounts, interviews, conversations) on health and wellness which can be used in future linguistic research; and (3) increased understanding of health literacy in the community. We aim to contribute to the development of broader best practices for health communication message design to underserved communities, especially during time-sensitive scenarios, as is the case with the current rapidly-changing pandemic. The documentary methods and resulting informational materials can be replicated for other non-English speaking groups within the US and internationally. All materials, including a corpus of interlinear glossed texts, will be archived and publicly-accessible at the University of North Texas Digital Library.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2031060 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Providing useable COVID-19 health information to linguistically underserved people | BCS | Linguistics | 05/15/2020 | 05/18/2020 | Kelly Berkson | IN | Indiana University | Standard Grant | Joan Maling | 10/31/2021 | $68,875.00 | [email protected] | 509 E 3RD ST | Bloomington | IN | 474013654 | 3172783473 | SBE | 1311 | 096Z, 1311, 7914, SMET | $0.00 | This project uses language documentation methodology to explore effective communication of COVID-19 health-related information to linguistically underserved populations in the US. Such communities may not have access to reliable health information in their native languages. Researchers can translate information from English into other languages, but translation alone cannot ensure information is presented in ways that are culturally appropriate and therefore maximally effective. The future path and possible resurgence of this pandemic remains unknown, so it is critical to learn about group health perceptions and behaviors in order to create best practices for developing critical informational materials for these underserved populations. Scientific investigation of languages for these populations provides the bridge between health information and cultural context. <br/><br/>Linguists and health information experts will work with a linguistically underserved community to collect personal and group reflections, eliciting highly emotive connected speech on topics rarely collected in language documentation projects. The collected speech samples will potentially include rare vocabulary, idioms, ritual language, songs, and remembered practices that underlie beliefs and motivate health behavior. In-language interviews will be conducted by first-generation native speakers who are undergraduate students and community members. The project will create: (1) video-conferencing technology protocols for language documentation fieldwork; (2) a unique corpus of interlinear glossed texts (personal accounts, interviews, conversations) on health and wellness which can be used in future linguistic research; and (3) increased understanding of health literacy in the community. We aim to contribute to the development of broader best practices for health communication message design to underserved communities, especially during time-sensitive scenarios, as is the case with the current rapidly-changing pandemic. The documentary methods and resulting informational materials can be replicated for other non-English speaking groups within the US and internationally. All materials, including a corpus of interlinear glossed texts, will be archived and publicly-accessible at the University of North Texas Digital Library.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027768 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Adjustment and Effectiveness of Rapid Transition to Remote Work | SES | SoO-Science Of Organizations | 05/15/2020 | 04/27/2020 | Kristen Shockley | GA | University of Georgia Research Foundation Inc | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $148,949.00 | [email protected] | 310 East Campus Rd | ATHENS | GA | 306021589 | 7065425939 | SBE | 8031 | 096Z, 7914, 9102, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has forced much of the country?s workforce into remote work arrangements. With the need for social distancing, the ability to continue essential business functions through effective remote work arrangements is a key means for addressing the global health crisis. However, many organizations are unprepared to accommodate a remote workforce and likewise lack insight into best practices as to how to promote continued productivity and well-being of the workforce in such arrangements. Although there is a large body of extant research on remote work arrangements, numerous questions remained under investigated. This project will address these gaps by studying the impact of several organizational, individual, technological, and supervisor characteristics on remote worker adjustment, well-being, and productivity. Findings from the project will provide evidence-based best practices that many large and small businesses can use both during future pandemics and other extreme events, but also going forward in normal work environments that may increasingly want to support remote work.<br/><br/>The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly promoted the need for remote work arrangements on a vast scale, but we lack key information regarding what makes such work productive and sustainable. This project will obtain data from 500 full-time employees who are working remotely during the response to COVID-19 but were not doing so previously. The first phase of the project will collect a baseline survey that captures characteristics and experiences prior to the pandemic and remote work transition and general perceptions of the adjustment to remote work process. Phase 2 involves a 30-day experience sampling study administered daily at the end of each workday that will capture day-to-day experiences, attitudes, and performance of remote workers. Benefits of this panel design are: 1) provides insights into how multiple dynamic changes influence outcomes; 2) enhances ecological validity; 3) allows researchers to examine both within- and between-person processes; and 4) reduces retrospective recall biases. The project will partner with several work organizations to collect the data. Data from Phase 1 will be analyzed using regression and dominance analysis; data from Phase 2 will be analyzed using multi-level modeling which controls for nested structures, adjusting standard errors to take into account the lack of independence. These analyses also control for between-subject variables and previous measurements while also accounting for missing data. Findings from the project will inform organizational theories involving the effects of organizations, individuals, work, and technology on workers and work outcomes.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2026922 | RAPID: A Multi-Level Analysis of Social and Behavioral Responses to COVID-19 | BCS | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci, Social Psychology | 04/01/2020 | 03/23/2020 | Brian Lickel | MA | University of Massachusetts Amherst | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 03/31/2021 | $198,187.00 | Allecia Reid, Ezra Markowitz, Katherine Dixon-Gordon | [email protected] | Research Administration Building | Hadley | MA | 010359450 | 4135450698 | SBE | 1321, 1332 | 096Z, 1321, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 outbreak represents a rapidly unfolding and important challenge to the United States and to the world at large with the potential for significant social and economic impact. Non-pharmaceutical interventions were implemented as part of a broader effort to slow the spread of the disease. U.S. citizens were instructed to increase hygiene efforts such as hand-washing and to increase social distancing by limiting contact with other people, especially in large crowds. In some states, school and business closures, as well as other forms of mandated restrictions, also began impacting people and families. Understanding the public?s response to this ongoing outbreak is vital, and social psychological and decision-science perspectives may uniquely contribute to the effectiveness of governmental and non-governmental efforts to respond effectively to further crises. This project examines predictors of behavior during the outbreak (for example, engaging in social distancing), emotional and coping responses (for example, seeking social support), and changes in social attitudes (for example, trust in public policies). The research tests the idea that both personal welfare and collective/national welfare can facilitate appropriate health behaviors. By following people over time during 2020, the study provides periodic snapshots of public responses to the outbreak as well as testing important scientific questions that will inform future public health and disaster-response interventions.<br/><br/>This RAPID project is centered on a four-wave longitudinal survey of a representative sample of 3,000 U.S. residents. Study participants are first contacted in March, 2020, and then again at three later time-points roughly every 12 weeks. The research is designed to provide an index of the evolving public response to the outbreak throughout the year. Threats are conceptualized as either threats to the self or threats to the national welfare. Similarly, reactions to those threats are framed as requiring personal responsibility or requiring a national response. Because the study assesses the same participants over time, the research addresses how changes in people?s circumstances predict changes in psychological and behavioral responses. One question is whether changes in concerns regarding the broader social impact predict adherence to public health advice and mandates differently than concerns about personal health impacts. The study also identifies participants? geographic location; over time, survey responses will be integrated with publicly available data to examine how local factors influence psychological responses. This will help address whether people in states and communities with greater investment in community resilience (e.g., public health funding) show better coping responses to the outbreak than in states and communities with lower investments in community resilience. The study design incorporates communication interventions at waves 2 and 3 to test the role of social norm information and shared (versus individual) responsibility on people?s willingness to follow public health guidelines and mandates. Using these longitudinal, geographic, and experimental methods, the research will test hypotheses on four broad topics: personal and social responsibility, norms and social influence, coping and emotion regulation, and impacts of the outbreak on social cohesion and conflict. The new knowledge will inform future public health and policy interventions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2035114 | RAPID: Next phase serological testing for SARS-CoV-2 for biocultural research | BCS | Cultural Anthropology, Biological Anthropology | 06/15/2020 | 06/10/2020 | Thomas McDade | IL | Northwestern University | Standard Grant | Rebecca Ferrell | 05/31/2021 | $199,217.00 | [email protected] | 750 N. Lake Shore Drive | Chicago | IL | 606114579 | 3125037955 | SBE | 1390, 1392 | 096Z, 1390, 1392, 7914 | $0.00 | This RAPID project will develop methods and infrastructure for SARS-CoV-2 antibody and immunity testing that can be operationalized to examine a wide range of social and biocultural processes as they relate to COVID-19 exposure and outcomes. Results from a large community-based sample will be used to inform estimates of the seroprevalence of infection in order to illuminate the geographic spread of the virus, identify subgroups of individuals more susceptible to infection, and investigate the development of immunity following exposure. A minimally-invasive approach to antibody testing will facilitate application in community-based settings and provide information on the predictors of viral transmission that can be used to mitigate future outbreaks. The project will also contribute to the infrastructure of science through training opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, and includes public outreach activities on the role of antibody testing for SARS-CoV-2. <br/> <br/>During the COVID 19 pandemic, strategic testing in community-based settings is critical for understanding the true level of infection, tracking the virus, and for preventing transmission. Serological testing for antibodies against the virus is an important tool for identifying individuals who have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2, but current clinic-based testing approaches require serum samples collected via venipuncture, which is difficult to implement when people are being asked to stay at home. This project combines the convenience of blood collection in the home with the analytic rigor that can be applied in the laboratory by using a serological test for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies that requires only a single drop of blood, collected on filter paper following a simple finger stick. The investigators will deploy a web-based, ?no-contact? research platform to investigate the origins of differences in COVID-19 infection rates across neighborhoods in Chicago. Following recruitment, participants navigate to a home page with their smart phone or computer where consent is obtained and a survey is administered electronically. A kit is mailed for the collection of a finger stick dried blood spot sample, which is returned to the lab and analyzed for IgG antibodies against the receptor binding domain of SARS-CoV-2. Test results will be combined with survey responses and neighborhood-based administrative data to investigate the individual-, household-, and community-level predictors of exposure. The second aim is to develop and validate a surrogate virus neutralization protocol for use with dried blood spot samples. This protocol addresses an important limitation of current antibody tests which detect the presence of binding antibodies, but cannot quantify the presence of the neutralizing antibodies that actually prevent the virus from entering host tissues upon re-infection. The protocol will then be applied to samples from the first aim to investigate the factors that predict the development of immunity to SARS-CoV-2.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029258 | RAPID: Examining Media Dependencies, Risk Perceptions, and Depressive Symptomatology during the 2020 COVID Pandemic | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 06/15/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Kenneth Lachlan | CT | University of Connecticut | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 05/31/2021 | $66,453.00 | [email protected] | 438 Whitney Road Ext. | Storrs | CT | 062691133 | 8604863622 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic presents a unique opportunity to examine risk perceptions and responses on both a national and regional scale. When faced with a major health crisis, individuals are likely to be motivated to seek information in order to alleviate anxiety and gather information about how to protect themselves. While these dependencies are well documented, less is known about the extent to which media dependency translates into desired behavior, and the extent to which other effects associated with these dependencies may help or hinder this translation. Particularly troubling is prior research supporting the notion that depressive symptomology may lead to inaction, and that reliance on different news sources may lead to variability in the perception of risk. The current study extends previous research by investigating the extent to which risk perception and motivation to take protective action are tied to specific source preferences, and the degree to which individual processing characteristics and related responses influence these relationships. The research also aims to investigate the argument that depressive symptomatology may lead to inaction under such circumstances. Further, the research team explores specific protective actions and perceptions of risk while the threat is imminent, as opposed to relying on recall. The findings contribute to our knowledge base by filling a significant gap in the social science literature on emergency response by evaluating the links between trait processing, source preferences, depressive symptomatology, and protective actions. The new knowledge is beneficial to emergency managers for message design and placement.<br/><br/>An online survey gathers data from a nationally representative sample of 5,000 respondents to assess the key variables of interest. Participants are asked about the relative importance of varying news outlets, sources of first alerts, time spent seeking information, risk perception (including magnitude and probability), specific protective behaviors advocated by the Center for Disease Control, and depressive symptomatology. Questions also measure emotional well-being, level of involvement in the information gathered, trait need for cognition, and ruminative coping tendencies. Prior findings concerning the role of rumination in information seeking are reexamined for replication and extended to investigate the subsequent role of this processing style in both depressive symptomatology and protective actions, such as social distancing. Source preferences are reduced into clusters using Exploratory Factor Analysis and examined in terms of the impact of specific source preference clusters on risk perception and protective action.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029790 | RAPID: Developing Social Differentiation-respecting Disease Transmission Models | SES | Sociology | 06/15/2020 | 06/04/2020 | James Moody | NC | Duke University | Standard Grant | Joseph Whitmeyer | 05/31/2021 | $174,891.00 | Lisa Keister, Dana Pasquale | [email protected] | 2200 W. Main St, Suite 710 | Durham | NC | 277054010 | 9196843030 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | In this project, transmission models that account for differences in social networks and exposure opportunities are developed to gain insight into the unequal spread of COVID-19 across populations. Some areas have experienced slow to no spread of COVID-19 while other settings have been overwhelmed. Within high-volume locations, some neighborhoods have been at much greater risk than others. To account for this uneven spread, these models incorporate population differences related to social density and sociodemographic characteristics?features that shape disease exposure and ability to social distance. These models augment general understanding of how social situation affects both disease risk and the cost of disease mitigation efforts, which will allow decisionmakers to evaluate the relative costs of different health-preserving interventions and, potentially, optimize interventions that minimize economic harm while maximizing physical safety.<br/><br/>This project aims to have accurate, flexible and scalable models for disease transmission that can account for observed social differentiation in disease spread. Simulation models are employed to meet this goal, drawing on best estimates from the COVID-19 pandemic for disease-specific infection parameters and rates of transitioning into hospitalization, death, or recovery. Modeling occurs on two levels: Agent-Based Models (ABMs) and small-area cell-based simulation models. ABMs are constructed from social network data and allow for maximum flexibility, being tunable to different types of populations, ranging from rural communities in developing nations to dense urban centers. Small-area (census block group) cell-based simulation models, which translate network structure to interaction probabilities based on demographic and economic similarity profiles, include population differentiation but scale to the national level. These two modeling strategies complement each other and can be used to evaluate different mitigation strategies for both health effectiveness (lives saved) and economic hardship.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2031043 | RAPID: Reducing the Spread of COVID-19 Through Contact Tracing: The Influence of Age and Interview Protocol | BCS | DS -Developmental Sciences | 05/15/2020 | 05/13/2020 | Deborah Goldfarb | FL | Florida International University | Standard Grant | Peter Vishton | 04/30/2021 | $197,054.00 | Jacqueline Evans, Ronald Fisher, Christian Meissner | [email protected] | 11200 SW 8TH ST | Miami | FL | 331990001 | 3053482494 | SBE | 1698 | 096Z, 1698, 7914 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has significantly disrupted daily life, both socially and economically, worldwide. Epidemiologists have cautioned that a return to ?normal activities? requires contact tracing, which begins with interviews of infected persons and allows for the identification and isolation of other exposed individuals. Critically, contact tracing interviews are fundamentally a memory task, yet the methods used generally do not incorporate memory-facilitating techniques. Further, research has generally found that critical groups in this pandemic, children and the elderly, often perform worse on memory tasks than adolescents and young and middle-aged adults. As such, there is reason for concern about the accuracy and completeness of reports provided in contact tracing interviews, particularly for individuals within critical life phases. This project examines the time-critical issue of how enhanced memory strategies can improve contact tracing. Through this research, developmental and cognitive science can play a role in our recovery from this pandemic, as well as other health-related crises.<br/><br/>The proposed study tests whether memory for contacts can be improved across the lifespan utilizing empirically-informed interview techniques. Specifically, this study tests whether individuals between the ages of 9 and 90 recall more contacts when queried via a cognitively-informed contact tracing interview, as compared to a baseline interview. The study will also examine the effectiveness of two types of administration: a self-administered survey format, and a live interview via video-conferencing. Developmental differences in the nature of the contacts recalled, such as the individual?s familiarity with the contact, will also be analyzed. The results of this study will directly inform our ability to conduct effective contact tracing interviews with individuals of all ages. Findings can also aid frontline workers? ability to conduct safe, efficient, and effective developmentally-appropriate interviews.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029880 | RAPID: COVID-19 Information Campaigns for Vulnerable Populations | SES | Economics | 05/15/2020 | 05/08/2020 | Emily Breza | MA | National Bureau of Economic Research Inc | Standard Grant | Kwabena Gyimah-Brempong | 04/30/2021 | $199,668.00 | Abhijit Banerjee, Esther Duflo, Benjamin Olken, Marcella Alsan | [email protected] | 1050 Massachusetts Avenue | Cambridge | MA | 021385398 | 6178683900 | SBE | 1320 | 096Z, 7914, 9102, 9179 | $0.00 | Until the development of an effective vaccine, the success or otherwise of reducing the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic hinges on whether individuals will engage in health-preserving and health-seeking practices, especially among vulnerable groups who have been, and will likely continue to be the most impacted by the pandemic. It is however not clear how messages about social distancing and personal hygiene effectively reach vulnerable groups. This research project will use experimental methods to design and implement innovative messaging programs in two vulnerable communities to study what determines the effectiveness or otherwise of public health information campaigns. In one community where information is sparse, the researchers will recruit influential people in those communities to broadcast the messages that will be designed. In dense information environments, the researchers will use physicians whose racial and ethnicity mirrors those of the vulnerable population which is the target of the information campaign. The researchers will compare the effectiveness of information campaigns in the two communities to evaluate the relative effectiveness of different approaches to public health messaging. In addition to its contribution to economic science, this research can also provide guidance on policies to reduce the spread of COVID19 and other pandemics. This research therefore improves the wellbeing of US citizens as well as help to establish the US as the global leader in public health messaging. <br/><br/><br/>This research project will use a randomized control trial (RCT) method in two vulnerable communities to investigate what determines the effectiveness of public health messaging. The emphasis is on messages to change two health behaviors---social distancing and personal hygiene and mask-wearing. Messages in the two domains will also be framed in terms of private versus public benefits of behavioral change as well as social distancing versus hygiene and face covering. In addition, the PIs also vary the conduits through which the messaging is provided in the study. In sparse information vulnerable communities, the PIs will use agents identified as network nodes to disseminate the information while in dense information vulnerable communities, the PIs will use ethnically diverse physicians who represent the ethnic diversity of the community as the conduit to present the message. The PIs will then compare results from the two vulnerable groups, allowing them to see to what extend the effectiveness of information campaigns depend on how they are framed or who carries the message. The research design from this extremely strong multi-disciplinary research team is very innovative. In addition to economic science, this research project also contributes to graduate education as well as public information policies. This research therefore improves the health of US citizens as well as help to establish the US as the global leader in public health messaging.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028082 | RAPID: Using remote diary methods to understand how families navigate COVID-19-driven schooling at home | BCS | Sci of Lrng & Augmented Intel | 05/01/2020 | 04/30/2020 | Brigid Barron | CA | Stanford University | Standard Grant | Soo-Siang Lim | 04/30/2021 | $199,745.00 | [email protected] | 450 Jane Stanford Way | Stanford | CA | 943052004 | 6507232300 | SBE | 127Y | 059Z, 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | It is estimated that over 95% of all school children across the country are out of the classroom due to social distancing mandates in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Almost overnight, families have had to develop and support new practices for learning at home as districts scramble to meet the academic, social and emotional needs of their communities. It is essential to collect data now to develop a deeper understanding of how schools and families are adapting to these changes and will continue to do so in coming weeks/months - the troubles they encounter, and the solutions they generate. Retrospective accounts may mask critical features of what was experienced, minimizing the country?s capacity to conceptualize and build more robust, equitable and transformative learning ecologies for the future. Emphasizing an equity approach to solution development, this research will document how families engage in creative practices to generate powerful learning based on local needs, values, contexts, and histories in this present crisis. It will address the following questions: (1) What resources are schools providing and how are parents navigating and extending these resources to sustain their child?s learning? (2) How are families exploring science and math concepts related to the pandemic? (3) How are parents and families learning to adapt (e.g. communication with teachers; broader social networks) and what challenges do they face (e.g. subscription costs; reliable Internet)? (4) How are digital resources for STEM, curated by the research team, utilized for learning? <br/><br/>Emergency school closures are exposing significant gaps in access to the Internet and communication devices, and the capacity of parents/caregivers and communities to capitalize on technology to sustain health-relevant learning in a time of crisis. This project will use a novel, remote-diary tool based on a smartphone-enabled data collection platform, to reach families across the country. Mobile-phone-enabled remote diary tools make it possible to reach families who are under-connected, not just those with robust technical infrastructure. The data collected will lay the groundwork for creating new socio-technical support systems informed by diverse families? experiences, as the crisis unfolds. Approximately 200 parents with school age children (early and upper elementary grades) living at home will be recruited. This study and a subsequent virtual workshop with other researchers who are also using remote methods to study learning will help establish a broader research agenda to specify the conditions under which socio-technical systems productively augment a family?s capacity to innovate and learn when traditional co-located school settings disappear. It will advance our understanding of how human learning adapts to unexpectedly changed learning environments. This study draws on advances in remote data collection and new analytical tools for innovation in research design.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2027694 | RAPID: The COVID-19 Pandemic and Changes in the Stress Response: Identifying Risk and Resilience in Adults and Children | BCS | DS -Developmental Sciences | 05/01/2020 | 04/30/2020 | Stacey Doan | CA | Claremont McKenna College | Standard Grant | Peter Vishton | 04/30/2021 | $164,138.00 | Patricia Smiley, Cindy Liu | [email protected] | 500 E. Ninth St. | Claremont | CA | 917115929 | 9096077085 | SBE | 1698 | 096Z, 1698, 7914 | $0.00 | For families with young children, the COVID-19 pandemic constitutes a major life stressor that is accompanied by heightened daily demands, including lack of childcare, altered work expectations, job insecurity, and social distancing. All of these are compounded by pressing concerns about the direct and indirect impacts of the disease on family members? health. An abundance of research has documented the negative effects of stress and instability within families and on child development in particular. There is relative lack of data, however, on factors that may protect children against the effects of such an unprecedented set of stressors. The current study will evaluate risk and resilience factors that influence how families respond to the stress, and identify family characteristics and parenting behaviors that promote children?s well-being, focusing on those from socioeconomically disadvantaged backgrounds who are most impacted by these unprecedented threats to health and social stability. <br/><br/>Prospective studies investigating the effects of a pandemic on psychological and physiological functioning in U.S. families have the potential to greatly contribute to our understanding of how children and adults cope with stress. The current study will capitalize on an ongoing longitudinal study of stress and adaptation in families with young children. The research will address fundamental questions about the effects of a chronic stressor on psychological adjustment, as well as the biological mechanisms by which stress affects health. Importantly, by examining patterns of socialization and variation in parenting, results of the study will highlight parental behaviors that may be protective. Utilizing a multi-method approach, the study incorporates questionnaire, and observational and physiological assessments, during the early period of the pandemic and approximately six months later. Comparing these data to those collected prior to the pandemic onset will allow modeling of trajectories, and the possibility of testing mediating and moderating mechanisms. The study will examine not only longitudinal change and individual variability in stress physiology and well-being, but also stress proliferation within families and the extent to which self-regulatory competencies and positive parenting including emotion socialization buffer against negative outcomes in children.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2028331 | RAPID: Pandemic School Closures and Teacher-Student Relationships | SES | Sociology | 08/15/2020 | 05/01/2020 | Allison Pugh | VA | University of Virginia Main Campus | Standard Grant | Joseph Whitmeyer | 07/31/2021 | $150,763.00 | [email protected] | P.O. BOX 400195 | CHARLOTTESVILLE | VA | 229044195 | 4349244270 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | This project assesses how new efforts and strategies for action, developed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, challenge or compound pre-existing differences among students. Existing scholarship predicts that during crises, people and organizations develop new strategies for action. As a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic, more than half of America?s schools have closed down and transitioned to online learning. This constitutes a unique natural experiment in how a crisis and uncertainty can affect teacher-student relationships (TSRs) and how these in turn can affect differences. The current crisis may strengthen TSRs as teachers and schools reach out to students in novel ways and normally non-academic matters such as student?s health and access to the internet at home become priorities. This study will help policymakers and school officials understand the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and resulting school closures on different groups of students, informing efforts to redress the effects of this crisis and plan for future disasters.<br/><br/>This project expands upon six months of ethnographic observations in two Virginia high schools (conducted prior to school closures) with online observations, interviews and weekly student time diaries and photojournals during the spring and summer of 2020, as well as resumed in-person data collection during fall 2020. Broadly, this project advances knowledge by showing 1) how school and teacher strategies to reach students during this crisis are received; 2) how TSRs change during moments of crisis and 3) how these changes inform differences in student experiences and outcomes. Specific research questions include: (1) How do TSRs shape the impact of the crisis on student engagement and outcomes? (2) How does the ongoing impact of TSRs vary by student background? (3) How does school response to the crisis affect teachers? connections with students? and (4) How does the impact of this response vary based on student background? To address these questions, this study?s data collection includes eight months of observations (both virtual and in-person when schools re-open), collection of weekly student time diaries and photojournals (N=80), and in-depth semi-structured interviews with administrators (N=20), students (N=120) and teachers (N=60).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029963 | RAPID: Assessing the Social Consequences of COVID-19 | SES | Sociology | 05/01/2020 | 04/30/2020 | Long Doan | MD | University of Maryland College Park | Standard Grant | Joseph Whitmeyer | 04/30/2021 | $110,399.00 | Jessica Fish, Liana Sayer | [email protected] | 3112 LEE BLDG 7809 Regents Drive | COLLEGE PARK | MD | 207425141 | 3014056269 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | This project examines the impacts of COVID-19 and states? and local governments? social distancing directives on behavior, time spent with others, use of technology, and mental and physical wellbeing. The objective of the project is to investigate these daily life impacts in real time and to analyze how these impacts are affected by sociodemographic characteristics that affect time use and well-being. Data are leveraged from several hundred respondents? daily time use before the pandemic along with data collected during and after the pandemic to create a natural experiment that isolates the effects of the pandemic on changes in behavior. Among the products of this research are evidence-based recommendations to address the social consequences of the pandemic.<br/><br/>This project collects data for the second and third waves of a three-wave panel study, the second wave during the pandemic with shelter-at-home and lockdown orders in place and the third wave after the pandemic has subsided and orders have been relaxed. Data for these two waves consist of survey responses and 24-hour time diaries collected from 2,000 respondents from online crowdsourcing platforms. This sample includes a smaller sample from whom data were collected before the pandemic. Data are collected on sociodemographics, typical sleep, work, and exercise patterns, and arrangements for housework and carework to investigate effects on time use and wellbeing.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027767 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Adjustment and Effectiveness of Rapid Transition to Remote Work | SES | SoO-Science Of Organizations | 05/15/2020 | 04/27/2020 | Tammy Allen | FL | University of South Florida | Standard Grant | Toby Parcel | 04/30/2021 | $50,625.00 | [email protected] | 4019 E. Fowler Avenue | Tampa | FL | 336172008 | 8139742897 | SBE | 8031 | 096Z, 7914, 9102, 9179 | $0.00 | The COVID-19 pandemic has forced much of the country?s workforce into remote work arrangements. With the need for social distancing, the ability to continue essential business functions through effective remote work arrangements is a key means for addressing the global health crisis. However, many organizations are unprepared to accommodate a remote workforce and likewise lack insight into best practices as to how to promote continued productivity and well-being of the workforce in such arrangements. Although there is a large body of extant research on remote work arrangements, numerous questions remained under investigated. This project will address these gaps by studying the impact of several organizational, individual, technological, and supervisor characteristics on remote worker adjustment, well-being, and productivity. Findings from the project will provide evidence-based best practices that many large and small businesses can use both during future pandemics and other extreme events, but also going forward in normal work environments that may increasingly want to support remote work.<br/><br/>The COVID-19 pandemic has suddenly promoted the need for remote work arrangements on a vast scale, but we lack key information regarding what makes such work productive and sustainable. This project will obtain data from 500 full-time employees who are working remotely during the response to COVID-19 but were not doing so previously. The first phase of the project will collect a baseline survey that captures characteristics and experiences prior to the pandemic and remote work transition and general perceptions of the adjustment to remote work process. Phase 2 involves a 30-day experience sampling study administered daily at the end of each workday that will capture day-to-day experiences, attitudes, and performance of remote workers. Benefits of this panel design are: 1) provides insights into how multiple dynamic changes influence outcomes; 2) enhances ecological validity; 3) allows researchers to examine both within- and between-person processes; and 4) reduces retrospective recall biases. The project will partner with several work organizations to collect the data. Data from Phase 1 will be analyzed using regression and dominance analysis; data from Phase 2 will be analyzed using multi-level modeling which controls for nested structures, adjusting standard errors to take into account the lack of independence. These analyses also control for between-subject variables and previous measurements while also accounting for missing data. Findings from the project will inform organizational theories involving the effects of organizations, individuals, work, and technology on workers and work outcomes.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029640 | Collaborative Research: A virtual workshop on conducting language research online: Enhancing the resilience of the language sciences in a time of social distancing | BCS | Linguistics, Perception, Action & Cognition | 06/01/2020 | 06/01/2020 | Joshua de Leeuw | NY | Vassar College | Standard Grant | Tyler Kendall | 05/31/2021 | $10,115.00 | [email protected] | 124 Raymond Avenue | Poughkeepsie | NY | 126040657 | 8454377092 | SBE | 1311, 7252 | 096Z, 1311, 7252, 7556 | $0.00 | This project supports a five-week long virtual workshop for language scientists. The purpose is to train language scientists to conduct language studies with human subjects over the Internet. There are two primary motivations. First, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, laboratories around the world have ceased in-person human data collection. That means ideas being left untested, discoveries not being made, students not getting trained, and human talent left untapped. Second, Internet-based experiments offer a number of advantages for research: they can be cheaper, faster, provide better data, and allow researchers to work on questions that are impossible to study in the lab. In fact, a number of researchers have pointed out that language science research would be advanced if more studies could be undertaken using Internet-based data collection. Thus, by enabling researchers to rapidly move research online, this project will not only help mitigate the costs of the COVID-19 crisis, but will result in a science that is more robust and faster-moving than before the crisis. The workshop will be free and open to all. All materials will be available online for individuals who could not attend the live workshop. <br/><br/>In each of the first four weeks, there will be a 2 to 3 hour live video presentation, including a live question and answer (Q&A) session. Each presentation will be followed several days later by a live, message board-based Q&A. During the fifth week, there will be an additional message board-based Q&A. Topics will include technical skills, such as using popular software platforms, as well as other research implementation skills, such as handling ethics issues and subject recruitment. The workshop will be facilitated by the teams experienced in the design and use of two robust software packages for online experiments.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2026984 | RAPID: The effect of a crisis on intertemporal choice | SES | Economics, Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 04/01/2020 | 04/08/2020 | Thomas Griffiths | NJ | Princeton University | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 03/31/2021 | $125,142.00 | Jonathan Cohen | [email protected] | Off. of Research & Proj. Admin. | Princeton | NJ | 085442020 | 6092583090 | SBE | 1320, 1321 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | Every day people have to choose between getting something immediately or getting something even better in the future. Saving for a vacation, retirement planning, and even working towards completing a large project all require foregoing immediate rewards to achieve long-term goals. Psychologists, neuroscientists, and economists have studied how people make these decisions, exploring how the weight put on the present and the future vary across individuals and their situations. Crises, such as the spread of COVID-19 in the United States, involve a unique configuration of stresses that may influence the way that people think about the present and the future. In such crises, short-term thinking can have detrimental consequences.<br/><br/>The research team is exploiting a unique and urgent opportunity to document how people?s choice between immediate and delayed rewards changes during a crisis. In January 2020 the team collected a large dataset on inter-temporal choice from over 3,000 participants. The researchers are using this dataset as a baseline for examining how people shift between long-term and short-term during the COVID-19 crisis. Heterogeneous infection rates and remediation strategies in different regions provide an unprecedented natural experiment for examining the impact of these factors on how people make decisions. By collecting an equivalent dataset at multiple points in the progress of the crisis, together with information about local conditions and stress levels, the reseaach team can can explore how these factors influence people?s decisions.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027293 | RAPID: DETER: Developing Epidemiology mechanisms in Three-dimensions to Enhance Response | BCS | Geography and Spatial Sciences | 05/01/2020 | 03/24/2020 | Debra Laefer | NY | New York University | Standard Grant | Scott Freundschuh | 04/30/2021 | $98,856.00 | Thomas Kirchner | [email protected] | 70 WASHINGTON SQUARE S | NEW YORK | NY | 100121019 | 2129982121 | SBE | 1352 | 096Z, 1352, 7914 | $0.00 | The DETER project will collect data sets that can transform the study of virus transmission from two-dimensional mapping exercises into highly detailed, three-dimensional propagation models to better equip communities with the information they need for improved disease tracking, community-transmission prediction, and preventative disinfection strategies. The project will provide new types of data related to human behavior when leaving healthcare facilities that will allow more localized disease transmission models to be created. The project will track human behavior in terms of where people go (e.g. bus, coffee shop) and how they physically interact with the environment (i.e. what they touch and for how long). The project will immediately make publicly available data that could be critical for modeling virus-based outbreaks including predicting further community transmission during the current COVID-19 pandemic.<br/><br/>Community-transmission is responsible for over three-quarters of the COVID-19 cases in the US. Yet, current models do not consider localized behavior to predict virus transmission or the extent of propagation within individualized settings and their surrounding communities. The DETER project will provide such data and demonstrate new three-dimensional means to understand community-level risk. The DETER project investigates how generalizable human behavior is in terms of destination selection after visiting a healthcare facility and the extent and types of hand-based interaction with the built environment. These questions will be answered through tracking individuals when leaving healthcare facilities and recording touch-based behaviors on public transportation and public accommodations. The project will provide a transferable framework and a data integration strategy that can be adopted into a wide variety of three-dimensional models and schema that will help equip researchers and local communities with better methods for predicting community-based transmission.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2029637 | Collaborative Research: A virtual workshop on conducting language research online: Enhancing the resilience of the language sciences in a time of social distancing | BCS | Linguistics, Perception, Action & Cognition | 06/01/2020 | 06/01/2020 | Joshua Hartshorne | MA | Boston College | Standard Grant | Tyler Kendall | 05/31/2021 | $33,880.00 | [email protected] | 140 Commonwealth Avenue | Chestnut Hill | MA | 024673800 | 6175528000 | SBE | 1311, 7252 | 096Z, 1311, 7252, 7556 | $0.00 | This project supports a five-week long virtual workshop for language scientists. The purpose is to train language scientists to conduct language studies with human subjects over the Internet. There are two primary motivations. First, in response to the COVID-19 crisis, laboratories around the world have ceased in-person human data collection. That means ideas being left untested, discoveries not being made, students not getting trained, and human talent left untapped. Second, Internet-based experiments offer a number of advantages for research: they can be cheaper, faster, provide better data, and allow researchers to work on questions that are impossible to study in the lab. In fact, a number of researchers have pointed out that language science research would be advanced if more studies could be undertaken using Internet-based data collection. Thus, by enabling researchers to rapidly move research online, this project will not only help mitigate the costs of the COVID-19 crisis, but will result in a science that is more robust and faster-moving than before the crisis. The workshop will be free and open to all. All materials will be available online for individuals who could not attend the live workshop. <br/><br/>In each of the first four weeks, there will be a 2 to 3 hour live video presentation, including a live question and answer (Q&A) session. Each presentation will be followed several days later by a live, message board-based Q&A. During the fifth week, there will be an additional message board-based Q&A. Topics will include technical skills, such as using popular software platforms, as well as other research implementation skills, such as handling ethics issues and subject recruitment. The workshop will be facilitated by the teams experienced in the design and use of two robust software packages for online experiments.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2029384 | RAPID: Daily Mobility Patterns and COVID-19 Risk among Urban Older Adults | SES | Sociology | 05/15/2020 | 05/19/2020 | Kathleen Cagney | IL | National Opinion Research Center | Standard Grant | Joseph Whitmeyer | 04/30/2021 | $199,927.00 | Christopher Browning, Erin Cornwell, Louise Hawkley | [email protected] | 1155 E. 60th Street | Chicago | IL | 606372745 | 7732566000 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | This project investigates the extent to which, among older adults, the ability to comply with public health guidelines is affected by demographic position and how this contributes to differences in exposure risk and health consequences. This study builds on an earlier study of activity patterns of a diverse sample of older adults to measure risk of spatial exposures prior to the pandemic and, through the collection of new waves of data, to measure spatial responses to the pandemic. The data from this project will inform future modeling of disease spread, providing more sophisticated assumptions regarding implementation and adherence to guidelines. The data also provide information that can be used to help decision makers develop and target interventions to minimize the emotional and physical health impacts of the pandemic on vulnerable populations.<br/><br/>Building on three earlier waves of data collection in 2018 and 2019, three additional waves of data are collected during the pandemic. Respondents carry smartphones and answer several surveys a day providing location and other objective and subjective data concerning their activities. A brief telephone survey follows in 3-6 months. Analysis assesses effects of demographic and locational characteristics as well as change over time.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2027387 | RAPID: Rumor Diffusion During Unrest | SES | Sociology | 04/01/2020 | 04/09/2020 | Kyounghee Kwon | AZ | Arizona State University | Standard Grant | Joseph Whitmeyer | 03/31/2021 | $74,000.00 | [email protected] | ORSPA | TEMPE | AZ | 852816011 | 4809655479 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | This project examines diffusion of rumors and misinformation during unrest. The context is a large city where the COVID-19 outbreak has happened amid a large-scale collective action. By empirically examining how falsehoods feed and are fed by collective behaviors in this situation, the project aims to understand how misinformation and rumors both online and offline co-evolve during a period of unrest. Understanding rumor diffusion during unrest contributes to identifying challenges for consensus building in contemporary communication ecology. By studying rumor diffusion in a large-scale context, the study adds value in knowing how authorities use misinformation. The project will have impact on training of future practitioners in terms of how to deal with news about unrest. <br/><br/>Research questions concern variation in rumors, misinformation, and the sharing of these; interpolation of COVID-19 rumors into collective action narratives; differences in the patterns of rumors and rumor-debunking messages; and the association between beliefs in misinformation and participation in collective action. Two methodological approaches are taken. First, string-matching techniques are employed to identify rumors and rumor-debunking messages from a large corpus of digital data, crawled from social media platforms. Computational methods including structural topic modeling and diffusion tree network analysis are used to infer coherent themes across rumor messages and to examine rumor diffusion patterns in terms of depth, width, and interlayer ratios. Second, online surveys are conducted in both regions using a stratified sample of about 1,500 anonymous participants. Regression modeling is performed to understand relationships among beliefs in different types of rumors, institutional trust, and protest support.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2031097 | RAPID: Who is (Not) Complying with the Social Distancing Directive and Why? | BCS | Social Psychology | 05/01/2020 | 05/11/2020 | Russell Fazio | OH | Ohio State University | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 04/30/2021 | $63,789.00 | [email protected] | Office of Sponsored Programs | Columbus | OH | 432101016 | 6146888735 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | In the current COVID-19 pandemic, one approach to minimizing the spread of the virus focuses on people?s behavior ? social distancing. Since the start of the pandemic, government leaders and health experts have requested citizens to follow social distancing directives. Despite this repeated message and despite the fact that many people are taking the message seriously, many others are violating the new norms. That raises important questions: who is and who is not complying, and why? Understanding why people choose not to practice social distancing is crucial for designing effective public service campaigns. This research investigates who complies, what specific beliefs should be addressed, and what factors make public campaigns believable. The project seeks to identify the factors that lead to greater compliance for the greater good, and will inform future public service campaigns. <br/><br/>A series of studies examines how social distancing behaviors vary as a function of belief systems. An innovative measure of social distancing is developed ? one that is more behavioral in nature than the typical survey. The critical beliefs that are to be examined stem from a conceptual framework regarding a directive as involving three essential components. One is the source -- someone is requesting people to change their behavior. A second is the surrounding context -- the request is in response to some challenge. The third component is the target -- the persons to whom the request is addressed. Belief systems relevant to each of these three components are expected to influence the likelihood that people will comply with the request. As a result, an entire network of beliefs is expected to influence how people respond and why. Some individuals? belief systems will lead them to view the request favorably, thus promoting appropriate social distancing behaviors. Others will reach more negative conclusions and subsequently refuse to take directives seriously. Once the concerns about the pandemic have lessened, study participants will be re-contacted and asked to again respond to social distancing behavioral scenarios and to indicate if they had experienced virus symptoms in the interim. Those follow-up data will shed light on the relationship between individuals? social distancing behaviors and their subsequent likelihood of infection. The research aims to inform theory regarding social compliance processes, and will provide a stronger foundation for developing future public service campaigns.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2030914 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Social Distancing During Pandemics: Developing Methods to Balance Affiliation and Disease-Avoidance Motivations | BCS | Social Psychology | 05/15/2020 | 05/14/2020 | Donald Sacco | MS | University of Southern Mississippi | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 04/30/2021 | $43,383.00 | [email protected] | 2609 WEST 4TH ST | Hattiesburg | MS | 394015876 | 6012664119 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | People have a powerful need to interact with each other. They also have strong desires to avoid disease. Social distancing is the primary behavioral method to stop disease from spreading. Yet, social distancing goes against the natural desire for social interactions. The tension between those dual motives can cause psychological distress, and may lead people to violate restrictions on face-to-face contact in their effort to relieve stress and loneliness. This is especially likely for people who do not have access to highly immersive forms of virtual socialization, such as internet-based video calls that let people see friends and family. It may also apply more often for older adults (who are most vulnerable to COVID-19) because of less familiarity with technology-based interaction platforms. By better understanding how people resolve the tension between the need to interact with others and the desire to avoid disease, this project will inform the development of public health interventions aimed at curbing the spread of disease.<br/><br/>This project contrasts the need to affiliate with the desire to avoid disease. One aim is to inform the development of interventions designed to avoid loneliness while engaging in social distancing. Study 1 collects data from the same participants across multiple days. Measures of loneliness, concerns with contracting an illness, and amounts and types of social interactions will be collected. The research tests the hypothesis that participants with limited access to virtual social interactions (e.g., those with limited financial means, the elderly) will feel most lonely and report decreased concerns about disease, which will be associated with more frequent violations of social distancing behaviors. Study 2 experimentally manipulates feelings of inclusion versus exclusion to test for effects of social isolation and for the concern of contracting the disease. Both studies are based on large and representative samples of U.S. residents to ensure the findings are applicable across different age ranges, geographical regions, and socioeconomic groups within the country. The research elucidates how various psychological processes work against each other and in interaction to ultimately influence social behavior. The research further investigates how people can safely satisfy their motives to affiliate without sacrificing safety. The long-term goal is to inform the development of interventions that may be developed to promote appropriate behavioral responses during the current and future pandemics.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2030886 | RAPID: Collaborative Research: Social Distancing During Pandemics: Developing Methods to Balance Affiliation and Disease-Avoidance Motivations | BCS | Social Psychology | 05/15/2020 | 05/14/2020 | Steven Young | NY | CUNY Baruch College | Standard Grant | Steven J. Breckler | 04/30/2021 | $105,999.00 | [email protected] | One Bernard Baruch Way | New York | NY | 100105526 | 6463122211 | SBE | 1332 | 096Z, 1332, 7914 | $0.00 | People have a powerful need to interact with each other. They also have strong desires to avoid disease. Social distancing is the primary behavioral method to stop disease from spreading. Yet, social distancing goes against the natural desire for social interactions. The tension between those dual motives can cause psychological distress, and may lead people to violate restrictions on face-to-face contact in their effort to relieve stress and loneliness. This is especially likely for people who do not have access to highly immersive forms of virtual socialization, such as internet-based video calls that let people see friends and family. It may also apply more often for older adults (who are most vulnerable to COVID-19) because of less familiarity with technology-based interaction platforms. By better understanding how people resolve the tension between the need to interact with others and the desire to avoid disease, this project will inform the development of public health interventions aimed at curbing the spread of disease.<br/><br/>This project contrasts the need to affiliate with the desire to avoid disease. One aim is to inform the development of interventions designed to avoid loneliness while engaging in social distancing. Study 1 collects data from the same participants across multiple days. Measures of loneliness, concerns with contracting an illness, and amounts and types of social interactions will be collected. The research tests the hypothesis that participants with limited access to virtual social interactions (e.g., those with limited financial means, the elderly) will feel most lonely and report decreased concerns about disease, which will be associated with more frequent violations of social distancing behaviors. Study 2 experimentally manipulates feelings of inclusion versus exclusion to test for effects of social isolation and for the concern of contracting the disease. Both studies are based on large and representative samples of U.S. residents to ensure the findings are applicable across different age ranges, geographical regions, and socioeconomic groups within the country. The research elucidates how various psychological processes work against each other and in interaction to ultimately influence social behavior. The research further investigates how people can safely satisfy their motives to affiliate without sacrificing safety. The long-term goal is to inform the development of interventions that may be developed to promote appropriate behavioral responses during the current and future pandemics.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 2028774 | RAPID: A Probability-Based, National-Representative Survey of Americans Before, During, and After the Pandemic | SES | Sociology | 05/15/2020 | 05/01/2020 | Tom Smith | IL | National Opinion Research Center | Standard Grant | Joseph Whitmeyer | 04/30/2021 | $197,815.00 | Louise Hawkley | [email protected] | 1155 E. 60th Street | Chicago | IL | 606372745 | 7732566000 | SBE | 1331 | 096Z, 7914 | $0.00 | This project examines the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on American society through a survey of adults who will have been surveyed before, during, and after the pandemic. The study measures pandemic-related health experiences including knowledge, behaviors, and experiences (e.g. exposure, contagion, testing), the economic impacts of the pandemic containment measures, and the social and psychological changes related to stress, anxiety, and psychological well-being that have occurred. It analyzes the degree to which the social and psychological outcomes are related directly to the pandemic?s health impacts and to the extent which these are affected through the pandemic?s disruption of the economy. Then, in turn it studies how the levels of stress as well as social and psychological well-being affect health-related behaviors and health outcomes. This knowledge helps inform, and possibly improves, efforts to mitigate the disruptions of the current pandemic and leads to the development of better programs and responses to future pandemics.<br/><br/>These research goals are achieved through a longitudinal and comparative design incorporating baseline measurements from both NORC studies during earlier periods of national turmoil and disruption and from recent, more normal times based on NORC?s General Social Survey. Using NORC?s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel�, a nationally representative sample of 2,000 adults are interviewed immediately and then re-interviewed twice in following months. The comparative analysis also determines how experiences and outcomes vary across areas in the United States and how experiences in the US compare to those in other countries.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2026814 | RAPID: Urban Resilience to Health Emergencies: Revealing Latent Epidemic Spread Risks from Population Activity Fluctuations and Collective Sense-making | SES | Decision, Risk & Mgmt Sci | 04/01/2020 | 04/01/2020 | Ali Mostafavi | TX | Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station | Standard Grant | Robert O'Connor | 03/31/2021 | $200,000.00 | [email protected] | 400 Harvey Mitchell Pkwy S | College Station | TX | 778454645 | 9798626777 | SBE | 1321 | 096Z, 1321, 7914, 9179 | $0.00 | COVID-19 outbreaks have had dire societal and economic impacts across the globe, and its spread has become a major societal threat in the United States. The majority of epidemic spread models, however, do not fully consider the tremendous uncertainty associated with human response behaviors (both populations and individual actors) and perturbations in urban system supply chains during an epidemic outbreak. For this project, the research team collects and analyzes time-bound data to better understand and predict and to more effectively respond to the risk of infection disease outbreaks in urban areas. These data can be used to help identify the underlying processes that influence urban-scale population response behaviors, collective sense-making in online social media, disruptions in urban system supply chains, and collective information processing and coordination among actors across different urban sectors. These finding can advance the fundamental understanding of the complexities of epidemic outbreak threats, which would extend beyond standard outbreak models and purely clinical research. The outcomes suggest new ways for better prediction and offer novel insights regarding ways to conduct urban-scale surveillance of epidemic spread risks. The findings inform strategies and possible data-driven tools and methods to prevent, help contain, and mitigate the effects of future epidemics and pandemics.<br/><br/>The specific project tasks are threefold. First, the project will identify and collect data that could provide weak signals about population response behaviors in response to epidemic threats. For example, anomalies in traffic patterns can suggest reduction in demand due to telecommuting. Mobility data, which informs about patterns of population fluxes, facilitates monitoring of the effectiveness of social distancing measures. Second, the project collects social media posts, such those in as Twitter, to examine how epidemic risk is processed and encoded in online social networks. Third, through organizational interviews and surveys, the project uncovers collective information processing and coordination actions among different actors across various urban sectors responding to epidemic spread risks and urban system perturbations. The data are analyzed through spatial modeling, network analysis, and data analytics techniques. In analysis of these datasets, a particular attention are given to population activity patterns in neighborhoods with vulnerable populations (e.g., elderly, low income, and racial minorities).<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 1947287 | Effects of Victimization on Engagement and Expression | SES | Sociology, LSS-Law And Social Sciences | 07/01/2020 | 05/07/2020 | Jennifer Carlson | AZ | University of Arizona | Standard Grant | Joseph Whitmeyer | 06/30/2023 | $379,975.00 | [email protected] | 888 N Euclid Ave | Tucson | AZ | 857194824 | 5206266000 | SBE | 1331, 1372 | 096Z, 9178, 9179 | $0.00 | This project examines the effect of severe crime victimization on the mobilization of friends and family. Specifically, it investigates why some of these individuals mobilize and others do not and for those who do, why they mobilize in the way that they do. Prior research shows that victimization of a friend or family member affects public activity. In this project, interviews with such individuals are used to research how these events have affected their psychological, social, and public lives. Findings will be useful to social service agencies, decision makers, and others seeking to improve outcomes in this area.<br/><br/>Hypotheses that the forms of victimization will affect responses, conditional on demographic characteristics, will be investigated by identifying 36 cases of victimization and interviewing 5 to 15 individuals per case. These interviews will be spread across three different categories of victimization in two locations with different cultures. The interviews will be analyzed to engage questions regarding why people participate in the movements they do, the social psychological precursors to and consequences of public engagement, and the relationship between public culture and public outcomes. In doing so, the project will lay intellectual groundwork for scholars interested in analyzing the import of victimization, including but extending beyond the victimization investigated here.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 1921190 | The Effects of Scheduling Regulation on Workers and Families | SES | Law & Science, LSS-Law And Social Sciences, Cross-Directorate Activities | 07/01/2019 | 06/08/2020 | Anna Gassman-Pines | NC | Duke University | Continuing Grant | Reggie Sheehan | 06/30/2021 | $424,405.00 | Elizabeth Ananat | [email protected] | 2200 W. Main St, Suite 710 | Durham | NC | 277054010 | 9196843030 | SBE | 128Y, 1372, 1397 | 096Z, 9179 | $0.00 | The courts and legislatures have played a large role in shaping today's workplaces, for example through minimum wages, anti-discrimination policy, and workplace safety requirements. Historically, legal standards also created the current U.S. norms around scheduling, including the 8-hour workday and the weekend. But in recent years, regulation of the labor market has focused little attention on scheduling, despite the fact that the nature of work schedules has been shifting dramatically. In particular, while the earlier generation of scheduling regulation concentrated on preventing employers from extracting too much labor from workers, many of today's workers fear instead too much variability and unpredictability in work and pay. Labor advocates have raised concerns about employers shifting the risk of variable customer demand from themselves to their employees, by giving workers neither hours nor pay when demand is unexpectedly low. Such risk-shifting, recent research has shown, can harm worker health and well-being. Given the demographic changes in both family structure and the low-wage workforce, many service workers today are single parents without other adults in the household on whom to rely, meaning that this risk-shifting may harm children as well. By examining a regulation that addresses work schedule unpredictability, this project will help identify the consequences of these new legislative interventions in the employer-employee relationship. This study will evaluate whether such regulations are feasible to implement and enforce, at a key time when many jurisdictions are considering similar untested legislation.<br/> <br/>The research project will evaluate a new labor law, the Fair Workweek Standard (FWS), which will go into effect January 1, 2020, in Philadelphia. The research team will gather daily data from 1,000 low-wage workers with a young child using an innovative survey tool. Data will be collected in two waves: prior to FWS implementation (fall 2019) and post-implementation (spring 2020). The team has designed a text-message survey tool to collect detailed daily reports about work schedule changes and worker and family well-being. The sample will be balanced across those working in: (1) retail, food and hospitality firms that meet threshold local and global employment levels and are subject to regulation from the FWS and 2) otherwise similar firms below those thresholds, which are exempt from the FWS. The project will answer three key research questions: (1) What is the impact of the Philadelphia FWS on working parents' schedule unpredictability? (2) What are the effects of schedule unpredictability on the well-being of low-wage workers and their families? (3) Are there any unintended effects of the legislation on working parents' hours, earnings, and employment?<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | |
| 2032752 | RAPID: Using a professional code of ethics to promote ethical and responsible research | SES | ER2-Ethical & Responsible Res | 06/01/2020 | 06/05/2020 | Trisha Phillips | WV | West Virginia University Research Corporation | Standard Grant | John Parker | 05/31/2021 | $71,522.00 | [email protected] | P.O. Box 6845 | Morgantown | WV | 265066845 | 3042933998 | SBE | 129Y | 096Z, 7914, 9150, 9179 | $0.00 | A scientific society?s code of ethics is an important symbol of the discipline?s standards, values, and commitments. This project aims to understand whether and in what way a scientific society?s code of ethics influences its disciplinary culture and individual behaviors related to ethical and responsible research. On April 16, 2020, the American Political Science Association announced significant changes to the Association?s code of ethics, a document formally titled A Guide to Professional Ethics in Political Science. This change provides an excellent opportunity to conduct a ?natural experiment? to study the relationship between a professional association?s code of ethics and research integrity. This project takes seven baseline measurements relating to ethics and research integrity among APSA members, including their perceptions, publication practices, and graduate student education in research ethics, so that follow up measurements can detect whether these indicators of research integrity changed after the association changed its code of ethics. Findings will be broadly disseminated to better enable scholars and academic leaders to promote the responsible and ethical conduct of research. <br/><br/>By collecting baseline data before changes are made to the ethics code of a scientific society, this project responds to three research questions: (1) How does a professional code of ethics influence the disciplinary climate of research integrity? (2) How does a professional code of ethics influence publication and dissemination practices related to research integrity? (3) How does a professional code of ethics influence instruction in the responsible and ethical conduct of research? Scholars have established that honor codes are effective influencing factors for academic integrity in undergraduate student populations, but little is known about whether and in what way codes of ethics can influence research integrity in academic and professional populations. Collecting baseline data related to: (1) member perceptions of disciplinary climate of research integrity; (2) author?s awareness of ethical norms and expectations; (3) submission requirements for journals; (4) author?s disclosure of ethical issues; (5) attention to ethical issues in publication and presentation forums; (6) RECR educational programming; and (7) RECR resources allows the effects of this change to be identified and measured. Understanding the effects of changing codes of ethics yields broader insights into the influencing power of ethical codes, and the causal and influencing factors for desirable and undesirable research practices. This knowledge will help enable academic and professional leaders cultivate cultures of integrity and achieve greater impact when revising their code of ethics in the future.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 1823316 | Criminal Record Questions on Job Applications as a Self-Selection Mechanism for Applying for Employment | SES | Law & Science, LSS-Law And Social Sciences | 09/01/2018 | 05/04/2020 | Michael Vuolo | OH | Ohio State University | Standard Grant | Reggie Sheehan | 02/28/2021 | $327,865.00 | [email protected] | Office of Sponsored Programs | Columbus | OH | 432101016 | 6146888735 | SBE | 128Y, 1372 | 096Z, 9179 | $0.00 | Individuals with criminal records fare worse at obtaining employment compared to those with clean records. Experimental evidence shows that employers prefer those with clean records, and that persons of color with records are particularly discriminated against. While much is known about employer hiring preferences, little is known about whether applicants with criminal records avoid or prefer particular employers. In other words, individuals with criminal records may not even apply to certain positions due to perceived low odds of getting the job or because they fear being stigmatized by employers in the application process. Employment is one of the most critical bonds for preventing a return to crime. If individuals elect not to apply for certain positions, such choices will decrease the odds of forming this important bond. Understanding under what conditions individuals with records choose to apply for jobs is therefore central to efforts to help individuals reintegrate into society and prevent crime. <br/><br/> This research project will interview 140 individuals with criminal records recruited from criminal reentry organizations and halfway houses in the Columbus, OH metropolitan area. An interview guide and brief survey were developed through a pilot study completed in 2017. In-depth interviews will provide nuanced information regarding job search experiences and choices. The interviews query topics such as experiences with job searches both before and after having a criminal record, whether criminal records questions or background check statements on job applications prevent individuals from applying for positions, how forthcoming individuals are about their record in the application process, and what types of industries they seek out. The survey gathers complementary information on socio-demographics, criminal history, employment history, and personal difficulties in applying for jobs. Respondents will be re-interviewed six months later in order to understand whether new experiences in the labor market alter choices among those with records, whether this differs by background factors related to labor market outcomes such as race, and the underlying reasons for any changes in choices such as those related to stigma. This project directly addresses ongoing public policy debates regarding how best to provide individuals with criminal records a fair assessment in the job application process so that they can experience the benefits of the important social bond of employment, best epitomized by the Ban the Box movement (which seeks to eliminate criminal record questions from job applications). By moving the discussion from decisions of employers to those of applicants, these results may fundamentally change the way we think about and evaluate these policies.<br/><br/>This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria. | ||
| 1744000 | Core Support for the Board on Environmental Change and Society (BECS) of the National Academies | BCS | Cross-Directorate Activities, ENVIR SOCIAL & BEHAVIOR SCIENC | 09/01/2017 | 04/15/2020 | Toby Warden | DC | National Academy of Sciences | Standard Grant | Jacqueline Vadjunec | 02/28/2022 | $677,930.00 | [email protected] | 500 FIFTH STREET NW | Washington | DC | 200012721 | 2023342254 | SBE | 1397, 5209 | 096Z, 1397, 5209, 9278 | $0.00 | This award will continue support for core operations of the Board on Environmental Change and Society (BECS) of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences. This board has functioned under its current and previous names since 1989 to advance science and environmental decision making by promoting integrated analysis of the human interactions with the natural environment. BECS will work with government agencies and other sponsors build understanding of human interactions with the biophysical environment; contribute to the development of a coherent field of scientific endeavor in this area; integrate social and behavioral science research into environmental science and policy; advance the behavioral, social, and decision sciences; and provide benefits to society through the application of these sciences to manage human-environment interactions. BECS will evaluate research simultaneously from the perspectives of the natural and social sciences with a focus on advancing generalizable knowledge to assist decision makers and improve the quality of practices at the federal, state, and local levels. BECS also will facilitate the development of an interdisciplinary research community in response to an increased realization that global environmental issues require enhanced knowledge based on social science research. Because it is responsive to and anticipatory in the advancement of cutting-edge science and application to policy to identifying innovative solutions to improve societal wellbeing, BECS serves as a national resource for the advancement of use-inspired science to inform decision makers, stakeholders, and communities addressing a myriad of environmental change challenges and opportunities.<br/><br/>The Board on Environmental Change and Society functions as the National Academies' primary unit for advancing research on the interactions between human activities and the environment by providing a forum for linking the social and natural sciences in research, planning, and decision making. BECS will strive to integrate social, behavioral, and natural science knowledge to address emerging scientific and governmental concerns through workshops, consensus studies, semi-annual meetings, symposia, and a variety of outreach mechanisms. Over the period to be supported with this award, BECS will develop and oversee activities, engage a greater breadth of stakeholders and serve as a focal point toward which federal agencies and other governmental and non-governmental decision makers look to for integrated, trans-disciplinary approaches to cross cutting environmental challenges and opportunities. BECS aims to advance new lines of interdisciplinary research on topics at the intersection of human and natural systems such as innovation in energy transitions and the social implications of such transitions; the nexus between food, energy, and water; building resilient and low-carbon cities; and shifts in migration under conditions of environmental change. |
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