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12/8/21

By Maryland Today Staff 

While the world contended with a pandemic, social media platforms and other sources spewed billions of misleading health messages at users—more than 3.8 billion times on Facebook over the course of a year, according to one study—a dynamic that University of Maryland researchers and their colleagues say can lead to adverse public health outcomes ranging from mistrust in reliable information sources to deaths from disease.

Now, these risk communication experts in the Department of Communication and at the University of Georgia (UGA) are collaborating with researchers at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to develop and test messaging strategies that can help overcome misinformation during public health emergencies.

Supported by a three-year, nearly $225,000 award from the FDA, communication Professor Brooke Fisher Liu and Yan Jin, professor of public relations and Georgia Athletic Association professor at UGA, will develop and test message strategies concerning vital health information that can help keep people safe.

“Past research found a clear link between COVID-19 misinformation exposure and vaccine hesitancy,” said Liu, the project’s principal investigator. “Research also connects misinformation exposure to lower compliance with government health and safety guidance. In short, misinformation is just as great of a threat to public health as the virus that causes the COVID-19 disease, but our knowledge is limited on how to combat misinformation.”

The researchers will be among the first to explore how public health misinformation can be corrected through strategic risk communication and what methods work best in thwarting misinformation. They will conduct two large-scale online experiments on how messages containing misinformation and various types of corrective responses are interpreted by U.S. adults.

“This project exemplifies the importance and promising future for more collaborative risk and crisis communication research across universities and with the government to provide theory-driven, evidenced-based insights to protect public health and safety,” said Jin, co-principal investigator.

Liu and Jin’s research collaborations date back to 2001, when they both studied in the graduate program at the Missouri School of Journalism. Now they are joined by graduate research assistants Tori McDermott from UMD, and Xuerong Lu from UGA.

In addition to the experimental results, the research team will also provide a targeted deep-dive analysis of previous research, and will recommend best practices for how public health agencies can combat health misinformation for current and future threats.

This article was adapted from a news release by the University of Georgia.

Last year, the Dean of the College of Arts and Humanities created a COVID Relief Fund to help support TTK faculty in completing scholarly and creative projects. This special purpose fund will continue through spring 2022 to help assistant professors and associate professors who have had limited access to materials and other resources they need for projects that are important for tenure and promotion purposes. 

Funds up to $1,000 will be awarded to TTK faculty who can demonstrate a need for funds due to COVID. The project funded must advance faculty’s promotion and tenure goals. Priority will be given to assistant professors but associate professors are eligible as well. Funds must be expended by the end of the 2022 calendar year.

Examples of acceptable requests are: costs for digitization of materials from an out-of-state library or archive; hiring research assistants or archivists at an hourly rate to obtain research materials from an out-of-state museum; postage and shipping to receive materials to your home. Travel is now eligible, provided that it is necessary and essential to completing the research that was stalled due to COVID. Travel must also fit current UMD travel restrictions. This special purpose fund will not support teaching releases, summer salary, or stipends or cash support for any other reasons.

Required Documents:

  1. ARHU Research COVID Relief Fund Application Form: online application form

  2. Project Description (two-page maximum, single-spaced with one-inch margins, at least 11-point font): Detail the project’s objectives and how it will meet tenure/promotion goals. Address how COVID has affected the completion of the project. Then explain how the funds will eliminate the barrier. 

  3. Budget and Justification (two pages maximum): Provide an itemized budget and justify each expenditure. 

  4. You must include documentation (web info or email) from sources outside of UMD confirming proposed costs associated with the project. 

Submission Process:

Complete the application form and upload all required documents via the online application found here. Applications are accepted on a rolling basis.

Award Expectations:

Awardees will work with their department budget manager to arrange for payment of itemized costs or reimbursements.

A report (two-page maximum) will be required within a year of award date and should summarize use of funds and how they helped achieve tenure/promotion goals. All awarded funds must be spent by the end of 2022. Funds not spent will be returned to the college. Successful applicants will receive additional guidance in their notification letter.

 

4/28/21

Congratulations to Philip Resnik, one of 101 scientists to receive an Amazon Research Award for 2020, his in the area of Natural Language Processing. The award goes towards Philip's work on "Advanced topic modeling to support the understanding of COVID-19 and its effects," and gives him "access to more than 200 Amazon public datasets, [...] AWS AI/ML services and tools," as well as "an Amazon research contact who offers consultation and advice along with opportunities to participate in Amazon events and training sessions." This is not Philip's first award from Amazon: in 2018, he received an Amazon Machine Learning Research Award on "Tackling the AI Mental Health Data Crisis."

Dean Thornton Dill created a special COVID Relief Fund to help support TTK faculty who have been met with barriers to their promotion and tenure goals over the last year due to COVID. Examples of funded requests include purchase of books and resource materials, digital subscriptions, duplication of archival materials, and professional editing services. The following faculty were awarded funds this semester. 

 

 

  • Mercédès Baillargeon, School of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures

  • Julius Fleming, Jr., Department of English

  • Bayley Marquez, Department of American Studies

  • Thomas Zeller, Department of History

3/24/21

 

 

 

 

Dear Research Colleagues,

On April 5, 2021, we will transition to the next phase for on-campus research other than human subjects research. Researchers will be allowed to increase occupancy of all research spaces up to 75% occupancy provided they observe the following 4 Maryland guidelines within that space:

  1. Wear a properly fitting mask over your nose and mouth around others at all times, both indoors and outdoors
  2. Wash your hands often and clean and disinfect frequently used surfaces
  3. Practice physical distancing as per campus guidance (Current guidance: 6 ft)
  4. Stay home if you are sick

These restrictions apply for all researchers regardless of vaccination status.

As previously, human subjects research will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis through the UMD IRB process.

We have been operating in Phase 2 -- intermediate presence -- since August 2020. Over the past seven months, researchers have adhered to the 4 Maryland guidelines and demonstrated the ability to maintain safe practices in our research settings in order to prevent community transmission of the disease. This has informed our decision to move to increased occupancy at this time.

However, the pandemic is not over. We will continue to carefully monitor the situation, and may need to impose additional safety practices if we see any evidence of community transmission in our research spaces. The health and safety of our entire campus community is most important as we resume our critical research activities. As a reminder, all faculty, staff and students physically on campus must be tested for COVID-19 every two weeks throughout the spring semester.

We will continue to monitor researchers' health and safety and if all progresses well in this phase, we hope to be able to move to full occupancy of research spaces by summer 2021.

Thank you for all of your hard work to keep our research enterprise going throughout this difficult year. We appreciate everything that you do to make the University of Maryland a powerhouse of research and an economic engine for the state of Maryland.

Laurie E. Locascio Signature
Laurie E. Locascio
Vice President for Research

 

The College of Arts and Humanities announces that the Dean has created a special COVID Relief Fund to help support TTK faculty who have been met with barriers to their promotion and tenure goals over the last year due to COVID. This special purpose fund is to help support assistant professors and associate professors who have been impacted by the current pandemic and have had limited access to materials and other resources they have needed for their projects that are required for tenure and promotion purposes.

Funds must go specifically to costs that have been created due to COVID, and if met, help reach tenure and/or promotion goals. Funds up to $1,000 will be awarded to TTK faculty who can demonstrate a need for funds due to COVID that advance faculty’s promotion and tenure goals. Priority will be given to assistant professors but associate professors are eligible as well. Funds must be expended by the end of the 2021 calendar year.

Examples of acceptable requests are: costs for digitization of research materials from an out-of-state library; hourly rate for assistant or archivist’s labor to obtain research materials from out-of-state museum; postage and shipping to receive materials to your home from off-site facility. No faculty salary will be provided and no travel expenses will be allowed.

Required documents:

  1. Special ARHU COVID Relief Fund Application Form: online application form
  2. Project Description (two-page maximum, single-spaced with one-inch margins, at least 11-point font): Detail the project’s objectives and how it will meet tenure/promotion goal. Address how COVID has affected the completion of the project. Then explain how the funds will eliminate the barrier and assist in completing the project.
  3. Budget and Justification (two pages maximum): Provide an itemized budget on one page, and justify each expenditure on the second page.
  4. You must include documentation (letter or email) from any source outside of UMD confirming proposed costs associated with project. Faculty can submit estimates for this application, but documentation should be consistent with those estimates.

Deadline for applications is 5 pm Friday, April 23, 2021.

Submission Process:

Complete the online application form and upload all required documents by 5 pm April 23, 2021.

Award Expectations:

ARHU will transfer awarded funds to the faculty member’s department account. Awardees will work with department budget manager to either get reimbursed for costs incurred or to submit invoices for direct payment.

A two-page report will be required nine months after award date, and it should summarize use of funds and how they helped achieve your tenure/promotion goal. All awarded funds must be spent by end of 2021. Funds not spent by then will be refunded to the college. Successful applicants will receive any additional guidance in their award notification letter.

2/1/21

By Charles Schelle

When faculty members from the University of Maryland, Baltimore (UMB) and the University of Maryland, College Park (UMCP) wanted to assemble an interdisciplinary team of researchers to find out what influences the African American community when it comes to vaccine hesitancy, there was no trepidation in wondering if the colleagues would receive support.

“Many of us on both campuses who have interacted see us as belonging to one institution,” said Clement A. Adebamowo, BM, ChB, ScD, FWACS, FACS, professor of epidemiology and public health at the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and associate director of the University of Maryland Marlene and Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center’s (UMGCCC) Population Science Program.

“Yes, there may be administration things each person has to sign off on at their personal institutions, but it doesn’t look any different than two people in different departments working together at the same university,” he added.

Adebamowo sees that collaboration in laboratories, classrooms, and communication. He accepted an invitation to work with Xiaoli Nan, PhD, MA, professor and co-director of graduate studies, Department of Communication at UMCP, for their second project together. This one is to understand why African Americans, who suffer disproportionately from the adverse health and economic impact of the pandemic, might accept or reject the COVID-19 vaccines. The goal is to craft messaging that will reduce vaccine hesitancy, and they are developing an online questionnaire for survey participants.

“When you are basically at the same university but on different campuses, I think people are more open to collaborations,” Nan said. “We’re more open to work with researchers from the same institution.”

That collaboration is called the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership: MPowering the State (MPower). Created in 2012, it was formalized as part of the University of Maryland Strategic Partnership Act of 2016. This paved the way for the two universities to combine their research offices, aligning not only their research initiatives but also their infrastructure and leadership. In 2018, Laurie E. Locascio, PhD, MSc, was appointed to lead the joint research enterprise as vice president for research.

Nationally, that work has been recognized for the first time within the research community. The University of Maryland achieved its highest ranking ever in the National Science Foundation’s Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) survey for Fiscal Year 2019, placing 14th overall nationally and eighth among public institutions in research and development (R&D) spending. For the first time, UMCP and UMB were linked as one research enterprise in the ranking, with combined research expenditures of $1.1 billion.

The HERD survey is the primary source of information on R&D expenditures at U.S. colleges and universities and widely recognized as the pre-eminent national university ranking for higher education institutions engaged in sponsored research. 

The UMB and UMCP campuses are 30 miles apart but now linked as one research entity, and Nan, the principal investigator, and Adebamowo found all the skill sets required for this project under one administrative roof.

Nan is a health communications expert, serving as director of the Center for Health and Risk Communication, which includes students and faculty collaborating from the College Park and Baltimore campuses. She also has cultivated rapport with colleagues in Baltimore as a full member of the UMGCCC Population Science Program, which has significant participation from UMCP.

“I’m a communications scientist. I’m not an expert on public health, per se. I don’t know much about interactions with patients in terms of vaccinations,” Nan said.

Adebamowo brings genomics and infectious disease knowledge to the project, which in September received $98,432 in seed grant funding from MPower’s Joint Steering Council.

They rounded out their team by finding a professor in the UMCP School of Public Health plus another faculty member at UMSOM who interacted with patients on the front lines during the pandemic.

“All of those skills together really make our team incredibly strong,” Nan added. “Also, because our project is based on African American acceptance of the COVID-19 vaccine, our colleagues in Baltimore have done a great deal of research among African Americans. Their experience with this minority population is most important to this project.”

In 2018, Adebamowo and Nan earned approval for their research on framing human papillomavirus vaccination messaging for African American parents, leading to $2.2 million in funding through the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health. The project runs through 2023.

That familiarity enabled them to join forces again for COVID-19. There is a mutual respect and shared pride in a joint research operation.

“The value has been in the amount and depth of collaboration that we’ve been able to establish, and just knowing the institutional processes intimately and, to some degree, the commonalities that they share,” Adebamowo said. “You’re not worried about going through a whole different type of institutional engagement with their own rules and personalities.”

The other collaborators include Shana Ntiri, MD, MPH, assistant professor of family and community medicine, UMSOM, and medical director, Baltimore City Cancer Program at UMGCCC; and Sandra Quinn, PhD, MEd, professor and chair,  Department of Family Science, and senior associate director, Maryland Center for Health Equity, UMCP School of Public Health.

Adebamowo is interested in finding out from the survey what is most affecting the optics of the vaccine. Is it information from the news media that might not be complete about the decades of research developing messenger RNA vaccines? Or is it a historical fissure between the medical and African American communities? Or is it a matter of morality or politics?

“Now that there’s a vaccine, are some of those expressions going to continue and transmit forward to affect the optics of the vaccines?” Adebamowo said.

Most of the country is trying to get crib notes on vaccinology and medical research. Naturally, people have questions.

“A lot of the things medical researchers and epidemiologists do in the dark were brought out to light during COVID-19 because there was so much pressure,” he said.

Soon, those answers will come through the survey to help shape messaging to address skepticism.

 

 

1/29/21

Click here to read the full article.

By  and 

[Excerpt:]
But a communications expert questioned whether the campaign might actually create more frustration as people seek a product that remains in short supply.

“If you’re dealing with an issue of trust, this kind of campaign might actually work against that, especially if you’re dealing with not having enough vaccine for people,” said Paola Pascual-Ferrà, associate professor of communications at Loyola University Maryland.

Linda Aldoory, a professor of health communications at the University of Maryland, said she was encouraged by the initial crafting of the campaign, especially as it leaned on trusted figures in the community — pastors, community leaders, local celebrities — something that’s “been shown time and time again to be a really effective way to reach the people you want to reach.”

She added that the state should consider on-the-street marketing — delivering flyers or pamphlets through churches or supermarkets, for example — to reach an older population. A frequent request from older residents during community health campaigns, Aldoory said, is for “something I can put in my purse” or take home to pass along to a friend or neighbor.

David Nevins, a public relations executive and president of Nevins & Associates in Baltimore, said some might see a marketing campaign as counterintuitive given how many people are desperately hunting for the few available doses.

“There’s a huge number of people for whom marketing is obviously not needed,” Nevins said. “But we’re also aware of the fact that there are a number of good people who are nervous and scared and have a bit of trepidation about the efficacy of the vaccine and the ultimate safety of the vaccine.”

Martha McKenna, a Democratic media consultant, applauded the launch as “a good first step.” But she said the state appears still to be struggling with getting out information about how to sign up for appointments and actually get a dose. The process currently involves not only signing up for local health department wait lists but scouring numerous other providers — pharmacies, clinics, hospitals — for possible appointments.”

“We should be making sure people have a 1-800 number they can call if they don’t have the internet,” McKenna said. “Where can you get the vaccine? When can you get the vaccine? How easy is it going to be to get the vaccine? That’s going to be the next step.”

The first two vaccines, produced by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, became available in Maryland in mid-December, initially for hospital workers and residents and staff of nursing homes, which have been hard hit with infections and deaths.

State health officials have been concerned that there initially has been a low vaccination rate, with more people declining the shot than expected. In the first weeks, only 30% of eligible health care workers took their first of two doses of the vaccine, a number that’s now closer to 80%, Hogan said. Earlier this week, Johns Hopkins estimated participation among its employees at about 50%.

“We were a little bit surprised, as were the hospitals, at the reluctance of some of the health care workers,” Hogan said.

The initial rollout also has been slow, with less than half the doses received in Maryland so far actually being administered, according to data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The state Department of Health’s estimate of doses used is higher, at 56%.

In the weeks since, eligibility has expanded significantly, now including all residents age 65 and older, first responders, some government officials, long-term care residents and staff, educators and certain essential workers. Many, including seniors, have reported difficulty in securing vaccination appointments through hospitals, pharmacies and local health departments.

Some local health departments aren’t providing shots to all those eligible, instead focusing on those 75 and older.

 

1/28/21

Excerpt from The Washington Post (To read the full article click here.)

By Fenit Nirappil

...

Behavioral psychologists say public health authorities must be mindful of a backlash as they start to shift mask guidance. When people living through a crisis are confused, they often stick to their habits.

“When you look at leaders and you see mixed messages like the ones you’ve seen in the past, you tend to latch onto the ones that make you feel comfortable,” said David Abrams, a professor of social and behavioral health at New York University and a former National Institutes of Health official.

Abrams said it is essential to acknowledge that the guidance is changing and to be patient if people do not change their behavior immediately.

“Let’s face it: This is changing very quickly and science is making progress and sometimes we even make mistakes and correct them,” Abrams said. “There’s nothing wrong with that or learning how to do something better. The double-masking is a good example of that.”

Linda Aldoory, a public health communications researcher at the University of Maryland, said there may be no swaying people who have already lost faith in the government to change their mask behavior, which is why other messengers should be enlisted.

“If we could get every famous influencer and celebrity to wear new masks and wear double masks … that might actually be a great way to start a new social norm to getting the kind of masks they want worn,” Aldoory said.

Danny Ryan, a 27-year-old who works in communications in D.C., said he was swayed to switch to two cloth masks in part after he saw Biden and Vice President Harris doubling up in recent weeks. He also reconsidered the protection of a single mask after seeing his breath while waiting outside for a coronavirus test, although experts say that is not a sign of a malfunctioning mask.

“It just stuck in my head — they are wearing two masks, protecting them underneath and maybe more above,” said Ryan, who now keeps extra masks by his door. “To be perfectly honest, I just feel safer doing it with updates in the news about the new variants.”

 

9/25/20

By Mary Therese Phelan

Five teams of researchers from the University of Maryland, College Park and the University of Baltimore are splitting nearly $500,000 in seed grants to respond to the challenges of COVID-19 in Maryland and beyond.

Projects will focus on new vaccines and therapies, affordable testing for the disease, how to encourage vaccine acceptance among people most at risk from the virus, and artificial intelligence-supported telehealth, the MPowering the State initiative announced today. MPower is a strategic collaboration that highlights and combines the strengths of both institutions for the good of Marylanders.

“This pandemic is not just a medical crisis; it’s a complex human crisis, which requires a multidisciplinary response,” said Roger J. Ward, UMB interim provost and executive vice president and dean of UMB’s Graduate School. “We knew that tapping the power of the strategic partnership would bring together top thinkers from all of the areas of our expertise in medicine and public health, as well as in the social and behavioral sciences, policy and law.”

The selected teams consist of faculty from UMCP’s College of Arts and Humanities, School of Public Health and College of Computer, Mathematical, and Natural Sciences, partnering with researchers from UMB’s schools of medicine, pharmacy and nursing.

“Through MPower, we can bring together our significant and complementary research strengths to respond to this public health crisis,” said UMCP Provost and Senior Vice President Mary Ann Rankin, who also serves on the Joint Steering Council that selected the grant awardees from 50 applications. “Our goal is to harness our collective faculty expertise to accelerate critical research that will reduce the impact of COVID-19.”

The projects are:

“Predicting and Improving COVID-19 Vaccine Acceptance Among African Americans during the Coronavirus Pandemic” received $98,432 to help understand why African Americans, who suffer disproportionately from the adverse health and economic impact of the pandemic, might accept or reject the anticipated COVID-19 vaccine. The goal is to develop and evaluate communication messages that could be used in a broader health promotion effort to improve COVID-19 vaccine acceptance among African Americans. The findings will help address COVID-19 health disparities and inform pandemic vaccine communication across ethnic and racial groups. The team includes:

  • Xiaoli Nan, professor of communication and director, Center for Health and Risk Communication at UMCP;
  • Sandra Quinn, professor and chair, Department of Family Science, and senior associate director, Maryland Center for Health Equity at UMCP;
  • Clement Adebamowo, professor, epidemiology and public health, Institute of Human Virology, and associate director of the Population Science Program, Marlene & Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center at UMB;
  • Shana Ntiri, assistant professor, family and community medicine, and medical director of the Baltimore City Cancer Program, Marlene & Stewart Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center.

Click here to read more about the other funded projects.

 

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