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Ameliorating Social Isolation in Populations Facing Health Disparities: Identifying Social Structural and Person-level Factors that Impede or Facilitate Health-related Social Behavior Change

Award Number: R01MD018492
ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL CENTER ON MINORITY HEALTH AND HEALTH DISPARITIES
OPDIV: NIH
AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY
AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 05/09/2023
PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 11/30/2027

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Ameliorating Social Isolation in Populations Facing Health Disparities: Identifying Social Structural and Person-level Factors that Impede or Facilitate Health-related Social Behavior Change - Social isolation and its subjective counterpart loneliness—well established as risk factors for poor physical and mental health—have been rising at alarming rates in the US, especially among young adults. Mechanistic understanding of how best to build social connectedness to ameliorate social isolation is sorely needed to redirect life trajectories toward health and well-being. In creating this foundational knowledge, populations who face higher disease burden—Black/African American young adults, Latino/Hispanic young adults, and those with lower subjective social status—merit special focus because persons in these at-risk populations often face unique challenges in initiating social interactions, including economic inequality. The broad, overarching objective of this work is to conduct basic experimental research on social connectedness to test whether, how, where, and for whom health communication messages can motivate in-person interactions to reduce young adults’ social isolation and loneliness. Our multi-disciplinary team brings together expertise in social psychology, emotion science, communication science, and health disparities and will carry out a 6-week randomized controlled trial—the Keep Social RCT—using our innovative and ecologically valid simulated social media platform and a suite of rigorous repeated measures of social behavior, loneliness, and other health-relevant outcomes. This program of research is designed to meet three specific aims. SPECIFIC AIM 1 is to optimize health messages about the value of social connectedness for young adults (ages 18-29) from populations who face higher disease burden and then conduct the Keep Social RCT to build a rich empirical platform. This aim will be met using a human-centered process to design health communication messages that include peer imagery and stories for an online experiment with 500 at-risk young adults. Messages that receive highest ratings for encouraging in-person interactions in this online experiment will be selected for the Keep Social RCT, which is placebo controlled with behavioral, survey, and implicit assessments repeated over six weeks. SPECIFIC AIM 2 is to analyze theory-driven mechanisms through which health communication messages in the Keep Social RCT may reduce young adults’ social isolation and loneliness to identify intervention targets. This aim will be met with longitudinal statistical modeling to test whether and how the experimental health communication messages improve social connectedness. SPECIFIC AIM 3 is to extend data analyses of the Keep Social RCT to identify regional and person-level moderators of reduced social isolation and loneliness to identify where and for whom effects are largest. This aim will be met with advanced statistical modeling to illuminate the conditions under which our health communication messages most effectively ameliorate social isolation and loneliness in young adults who face higher burden of disease. Taken together, this research will provide a framework to identify intervention targets to guide subsequent translational work undertaken to reduce health disparities in the US.


Issue Date FY	Funding FY	Legal Entity Name	Legal Entity Address	Legal Entity City	Legal Entity State	Legal Entity Zip Code	Legal Entity COUNTY	Legal Entity COUNTRY	Assistance Listing	Award Code	Budget Year	Action Date	Action Type	Action Amount

Issue Date FY: 2026 ( Subtotal = $628,946 )
2026	2026	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	000	4	12/12/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$566,052
2026	2026	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	001	4	2/17/2026	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$62,894
														Subtotal = $628,946

Issue Date FY: 2025 ( Subtotal = $619,831 )
2025	2025	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	001	3	4/28/2025	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$61,983
2025	2025	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	000	3	11/26/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$557,848
														Subtotal = $619,831

Issue Date FY: 2024 ( Subtotal = $601,236 )
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	002	2	4/16/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$0
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	003	2	5/24/2024	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$43,388
2024	2024	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	001	2	11/5/2023	NON-COMPETING CONTINUATION	$557,848
2024	2023	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	000	1	11/5/2023	NEW	$0
														Subtotal = $601,236

Issue Date FY: 2023 ( Subtotal = $659,743 )
2023	2023	UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILL	104 AIRPORT DR STE 2200	CHAPEL HILL	NC	27599	ORANGE	USA	Minority Health and Health Disparities Research	000	1	5/9/2023	NEW	$659,743
														Subtotal = $659,743

Grand Total All Awards = $2,509,756

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Ameliorating Social Isolation in Populations Facing Health Disparities: Identifying Social Structural and Person-level Factors that Impede or Facilitate Health-related Social Behavior Change

Award Number: R01MD018492

ORGANIZATION: NATIONAL CENTER ON MINORITY HEALTH AND HEALTH DISPARITIES

OPDIV: NIH

AWARD CLASS: DISCRETIONARY

AWARD ACTIVITY TYPE: SCIENTIFIC/HEALTH RESEARCH (INCLUDES SURVEYS)

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE START DATE: 05/09/2023

PERIOD OF PERFORMANCE END DATE: 11/30/2027

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