What do HIV, nutrition, substance use, and weight management have to do with COVID-19?<\/p>\n
They\u2019re all areas where behavioral, social, and health researchers at UConn have developed particular expertise \u2013 and that expertise has helped to create science and evidence-informed recommendations for the University as it embarks on the Fall semester amidst the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt became clear in the spring that how we approached the fall semester was a grand challenge and that a collective effort was needed to figure out how best to reopen our campuses,\u201d says Amy Gorin, a professor in UConn\u2019s Department of Psychological Sciences and director of the Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy, also known as InCHIP<\/a>.<\/p>\n InCHIP is an interdisciplinary research institute with a network of more than 400 affiliates from diverse fields of study. From medicine to economics, nursing to engineering, communication to kinesiology, InCHIP researchers work together to create and disseminate new knowledge and theoretical frameworks in the areas of health behavior and health behavior change at individual, environmental, social, and policy levels.<\/p>\n When it came to COVID, Gorin said, InCHIP researchers wanted to bring the lessons they had learned from their extensive work in other health domains to the complex challenges that the University faces in reopening.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of the questions that we\u2019re grappling with are in the wheelhouse of our social and behavioral scientists,\u201d she says. \u201cThings like, how do you get people to engage in health behaviors? How do you communicate about health risk and threat? How do you reduce harm? When you\u2019re helping people to change their behaviors over time, sometimes those changes aren\u2019t particularly pleasant in the moment, or they don\u2019t have an immediate payoff, but they are essential to long-term success.\u201d<\/p>\n InCHIP mobilized quickly after the close of the spring semester to form a 19-member Social and Behavioral Sciences COVID-19 Workgroup comprised of faculty, administrators, staff, and student representatives. The group was charged with leveraging its members\u2019 collective expertise to inform discussions with UConn\u2019s leadership about how to design a safe campus reopening.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was a partnership that emerged between UConn leadership and InCHIP and many other units on campus, notably Dean of Students Elly Daugherty and her wonderful team in Student Affairs, to develop connections between our researchers and the folks who would be implementing programs and policies on the ground,\u201d says Gorin.<\/p>\n Subgroups\u00a0 took on different tasks, all using applied behavioral science methods to gather data and formulate recommendations that were then shared with the University\u2019s administration. They focused a lot of their efforts on community engagement \u2013 with particular attention to undergraduate students, conducting a Thoughtexchange<\/a> crowdsourcing survey with 2,703 undergrads to assess their hopes, ideas, and questions about the fall semester.<\/p>\n One of our guiding principles in all of this was that we need to take a community-based, participatory approach to this challenge. So, it\u2019s critical that we hear from students, faculty, and staff about their questions and concerns. A lot of the focus was on our undergraduates, since their daily life and their experience with the campus and the University was going to be changing so drastically. — Amy Gorin, InCHIP Director<\/cite><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n \u201cOne of our guiding principles in all of this was that we need to take a community-based, participatory approach to this challenge,\u201d Gorin says. \u201cSo, it\u2019s critical that we hear from students, faculty, and staff about their questions and concerns. A lot of the focus was on our undergraduates, since their daily life and their experience with the campus and the University was going to be changing so drastically.\u201d<\/p>\n Gorin says the Thoughtexchange showed that there isn’t one, universal response when it comes to reopening and returning to campus.<\/p>\n \u201cWe had students who felt very strongly about campus reopening and wanting to have that typical college experience at any cost,\u201d she says, \u201cand then a large group wanted to make sure that there was flexibility \u2013 that they could participate online, take all of their classes remotely, interact with their peers virtually. They wanted to do that to keep themselves, their families, and even their professors, safe.\u201d<\/p>\n The working group also conducted a virtual Ideas Lab<\/a> \u2013 a five-week workshop that called on the collective expertise of 110 staff, faculty, undergraduate and graduate students to adopt, adapt, and create solutions that might work for UConn. Suggestions for solutions as varied as practical foot-activated door openers and signage to reimagined social connections and a public health communication campaign were the product of that effort.<\/p>\n The working group later conducted a series of focus groups with students to get their perspective on some of the announced reopening plans and also developed a series of resources to help instructors identify students who might be struggling and to help students and other members of the UConn community connect with physical and mental wellness resources available to them. The working group also conducted a Thoughtexchange of Mansfield residents, working with the mayor and local leaders, to engage the broader community as students return to Storrs.<\/p>\n The workgroup collaborated with colleagues in Student Affairs and University Communications to develop a pledge for all members of the UConn community to make, in which each person commits to adhere to essential prevention behaviors and medical management recommendations and to conduct themselves as allies for individuals and communities who have been vulnerable to bias, discrimination, and stigma, both during the pandemic and beyond.<\/p>\n That pledge \u2013 the UConn Promise<\/a> \u2013 is, at its core, a promise to help keep the community safe and the campus open, says Gorin.<\/p>\n \u201cCreating a new set of norms on campus is imperative,\u201d she says, \u201cand we all need to make a commitment to consistently engage in prevention behaviors to minimize the spread of COVID.\u201d<\/p>\n Another recommendation from the working group, originating in the Ideas Lab, was the creation of a peer support program that engages students as ambassadors from a broad array of backgrounds, interests, and social groups on campus who will interact with their fellow students in-person, virtually, and on social media and encourage them to adhere to COVID-19 guidelines in ways that are motivational, supportive, and nonjudgmental.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is essentially training students to have language to talk to their peers about COVID-related behavior change,\u201d says Gorin, \u201cand specifically giving suggestions on how to deal with folks who maybe aren\u2019t embracing the behavioral changes that we all need to do to keep our campus open \u2013 things like wearing masks, and keeping social gatherings small.\u201d<\/p>\n The program is being spearheaded by Jenn Longa in Student Affairs, and over 85 students have expressed interest in being trained as ambassadors.<\/p>\n\n