Noyce Conference Room
Workshop

All day

 

Our campus is closed to the public for this event.

The workshop will bring together experts spanning the sciences, social sciences, engineering, and public health to address the social, cognitive, and emotional dynamics that emerge and influence the course of public health threats, the role of social media in shaping these dynamics, and the potential to incorporate social and behavioral data into the surveillance, forecasting and control of pandemics.

Through three expert panels and three group brainstorm sessions, we will examine four topics: 1) using big data and behavioral experiments to measure and track psychological states (e.g. emotional, social, and cognitive processes) and behavioral patterns, 2) developing theory and predictive models of psychological and behavioral dynamics, 3) incorporating psychological and behavioral processes into infectious disease models, and 4) applying the insights and tools developed in 1-3 to design pandemic interventions that positively influence perceptions, behavior, and policy adherence. We will interrogate preliminary studies that use social media data to track changing sentiments and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and aim to articulate concrete research goals for the next 5-10 years, particularly at the interface of social psychology, behavioral epidemiology, and epidemic modeling.

Organizers

Lauren Ancel MeyersLauren Ancel MeyersProfessor, Institute of Ecology + Biodiversity at the University of Texas, Austin; Science Board Member + External Professor at SFI
Akihiro NishiAkihiro NishiAssistant Professor, Dept. of Epidemiology at UCLA
James PennebakerJames PennebakerRegents Centennial Professor of Liberal Arts & Professor of Psychology, University of Texas, Austin
Ying DingYing DingBill & Lewis Suit Professor at School of Information, University of Texas at Austin
Spencer FoxSpencer FoxAssistant Professor, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics and Institute of Bioinformatics at the University of Georgia

More SFI Events