Catch Up With Chuck | Episode 4

Rural Futures Institute Author

11/15/2017 Added

17 Plays

Description

In this episode of Catch Up With Chuck, University of Nebraska professor of sociology Kirk Dombrowski joins Chuck to discuss the RFI-funded research project, “Minority Health Disparities Initiative.”

Searchable Transcript

Search:

[00:00:01.079]Listen.
[00:00:01.958]Welcome back to Catch Up With Chuck,
[00:00:03.880]this periodic broadcast
[00:00:05.829]from the Rural Futures Institute
[00:00:07.758]at the University of Nebraska.
[00:00:09.611]I'm Chuck Schroeder.
[00:00:10.600]I'm the Executive Director of the Rural Futures Institute,
[00:00:13.811]and today we're gonna talk about
[00:00:15.571]some very innovative research
[00:00:17.651]into some of the most difficult challenges
[00:00:20.021]facing rural communities,
[00:00:21.741]and the impact of that research on rural Nebraskans.
[00:00:25.829]I'm delighted today to be joined
[00:00:27.560]by a good colleague here at UNL
[00:00:30.309]that I very much enjoyed getting to know
[00:00:32.381]over the last year, Dr. Kirk Dombrowski.
[00:00:35.011]Kirk is the John Bruhn Professor of Sociology at UNL,
[00:00:39.909]but I think it's important to know
[00:00:41.319]that he's an internationally respected scholar
[00:00:44.360]whose worked from Nebraska to Alaska to Puerto Rico,
[00:00:47.941]and all kinds of other places around the globe
[00:00:50.789]really going face-to-face with rural issues
[00:00:54.041]ranging from opiod addiction
[00:00:56.591]to minority health disparities among other things.
[00:00:58.772]In that role, I think it's important for you to know
[00:01:02.306]as a colleague here at the Rural Futures Institute,
[00:01:05.855]Kirk works across a number of fields,
[00:01:08.596]that include sociology,
[00:01:09.935]but also anthropology, psychology,
[00:01:12.404]political economy,
[00:01:14.084]and there are
[00:01:14.917]maybe some others. Nutrition.
[00:01:15.750]Nutrition.
[00:01:16.626]Hang out with artists a little bit.
[00:01:18.775]I even hang out with artists.
[00:01:19.924]Yeah.
[00:01:20.757]So anyway, Kirk, why don't you give us a little snapshot
[00:01:24.503]of your background and your work at UNL.
[00:01:26.567]Sure, I'm happy to.
[00:01:28.010]Prior to coming to UNL,
[00:01:30.004]I was in New York City as a researcher
[00:01:33.157]at The City University of New York,
[00:01:34.738]and I was collaborating with Les Whitbeck,
[00:01:36.526]who is a professor in the sociology department,
[00:01:38.328]very internationally renounced scholar
[00:01:40.568]in Native American Health,
[00:01:42.037]and I was a consultant on one of his grants,
[00:01:44.997]and he invited me out to Nebraska.
[00:01:47.698]He was retiring.
[00:01:49.351]They put on the charm and put on the push
[00:01:52.239]and convinced me
[00:01:53.669]to relocate here,
[00:01:55.295]and it's been a great move.
[00:01:57.783]Prior to that,
[00:01:58.969]I had started out as a field researcher in Alaska,
[00:02:03.995]dealing with substance abuse issues and suicide,
[00:02:06.424]which is a large problem in northern communities,
[00:02:08.373]in many Native American communities.
[00:02:10.597]My frustration with that led me to try to figure out
[00:02:14.834]some new ways to deal with data collection,
[00:02:18.540]social relationships,
[00:02:19.540]and how you document them and those things.
[00:02:22.775]I was very lucky to find a collaborator
[00:02:24.814]in a computer scientist named Bilal Khan,
[00:02:27.480]who became my research partner, as you know.
[00:02:30.989]Fascinating guy for sure.
[00:02:32.974]Yeah.
[00:02:33.807]Yeah, jack of all trades.
[00:02:35.185]Amazing intellect,
[00:02:37.612]and together we started developing some tools
[00:02:39.265]for data collection that allowed us
[00:02:42.105]to collect the kinds of data we were doing already,
[00:02:46.043]but quicker, faster, better, easier.
[00:02:49.555]That created a lot of research opportunities.
[00:02:52.372]As you say, we wound up all over the Arctic,
[00:02:54.988]and then in the Caribbean.
[00:02:56.217]We were in Vietnam,
[00:02:57.834]and we're looking at some collaborations
[00:03:00.716]with Lusaka Hospital in Zambia right now.
[00:03:04.988]So UNL
[00:03:06.111]was looking to replace Dr. Whitbeck when he was retiring,
[00:03:10.121]and they made me a great offer, a very generous offer.
[00:03:13.231]We were ready for a move, and my wife's from the Midwest.
[00:03:16.758]It made a lot of sense,
[00:03:18.296]so we were really happy to get here.
[00:03:19.768]Well listen,
[00:03:20.601]you have assembled a very interesting group
[00:03:23.862]in your REACH research group.
[00:03:25.782]Sure, yep.
[00:03:27.448]So when I came here, I founded the REACH lab,
[00:03:30.321]which is Research, Evaluation,
[00:03:32.209]and Analysis For Community Health.
[00:03:34.231]The website is reach.unl.edu if anyone's interested.
[00:03:39.626]So we were doing community-based research
[00:03:43.473]I think from the very beginning,
[00:03:45.332]and that was we knew that in order to do good work
[00:03:47.921]in rural communities, that we had to be in touch.
[00:03:51.143]That meant getting people involved
[00:03:53.913]in the research process from beginning to end.
[00:03:56.369]So we assembled a lab that has all kinds of,
[00:04:00.415]it has the capacity to do the high-end technical work
[00:04:04.005]that we do right now.
[00:04:04.838]We have five full-time programmers,
[00:04:06.405]but we also have community engagement specialists.
[00:04:09.306]We have long-time project coordinators
[00:04:11.906]who have worked in the field
[00:04:13.497]with Native American communities,
[00:04:14.412]with Midwestern communities,
[00:04:16.533]and so, and then very fortunately,
[00:04:18.470]I was able to convince UNL to reach out
[00:04:21.202]and bring Bilal Khan,
[00:04:22.390]my former research worker in New York at here as well,
[00:04:25.093]so he's there.
[00:04:26.026]So we put together a lab
[00:04:28.032]that is simultaneously a software development lab,
[00:04:32.024]a community impact lab,
[00:04:34.181]a theory lab,
[00:04:37.461]and I just wear different hats everyday,
[00:04:40.162]and very fortunately,
[00:04:40.995]we have very smart people in all of those separate areas.
[00:04:44.301]The real art of my job is just to be the conductor,
[00:04:47.790]so our post docks right now are a mathematician
[00:04:50.613]from University of North Carolina,
[00:04:52.470]an anthropologist from Stanford,
[00:04:54.232]a sociologist out of Nebraska.
[00:04:58.072]So my job is to figure out how all those pieces go together.
[00:05:02.271]Leadership matters one more time,
[00:05:03.392]and I hear from your team
[00:05:04.901]about the quality of your leadership.
[00:05:07.421]Well listen, speaking of your team,
[00:05:09.461]you and your team
[00:05:10.340]have been working
[00:05:11.498]on a Rural Futures Institute sponsored-project
[00:05:15.402]that under the title of Minority Health Disparities,
[00:05:19.232]but let me just say from a community-perspective,
[00:05:23.552]you're talking about
[00:05:26.252]dealing with challenges
[00:05:28.809]to access to quality healthcare
[00:05:30.827]for people coming from different cultures,
[00:05:34.139]different countries,
[00:05:35.187]overcoming language barriers,
[00:05:36.956]cultural barriers, all kinds of issues in a community.
[00:05:40.838]You've been conducting that research,
[00:05:42.638]in one of Nebraska's legendary rural communities,
[00:05:45.604]Lexington. Amazing place.
[00:05:46.905]Out in the heart of Dawson County.
[00:05:49.414]Talk a little bit about the very unique high-tech,
[00:05:53.046]high-touch approach that you've taken there.
[00:05:55.038]Absolutely.
[00:05:55.871]So I'll just back up and say,
[00:05:58.175]one of the other roles that UNL was looking to fill
[00:06:00.987]when I came out was
[00:06:01.854]the Minority Health Disparities Initiative,
[00:06:03.446]which is something started by Prem Paul,
[00:06:06.592]the former Vice-Chancellor for Research,
[00:06:08.451]and is now carried on by Steve Goddard,
[00:06:10.251]our Vice-Chancellor of Research now.
[00:06:12.849]This is aimed at trying to do three things,
[00:06:15.775]which was increase faculty work
[00:06:18.358]in Minority Health Disparities,
[00:06:20.698]train the next generation of minority health scholars,
[00:06:24.269]and to have real impact in communities in Nebraska.
[00:06:28.349]So I was asked to take over that initiative,
[00:06:31.698]and that involved taking a group of young faculty,
[00:06:34.370]many of whom have been hired in the last few years
[00:06:37.149]from many different departments, psychology,
[00:06:38.730]educational psychology, nutrition,
[00:06:41.229]sociology, anthropology.
[00:06:43.427]Who am I leaving out?
[00:06:45.156]Computer science, and bring them together.
[00:06:47.743]So this project was an attempt by us
[00:06:49.452]to put some of our tools in our community,
[00:06:51.732]impact people in place,
[00:06:52.941]and bring a bunch of young research scholars
[00:06:55.759]into the research fold
[00:06:57.979]to teach them how to do community-based research,
[00:07:00.110]and to do that in a way that impacts Nebraska.
[00:07:02.350]So we put together a proposal around Lexington.
[00:07:06.178]As you know and as you hinted at,
[00:07:09.059]Lexington is a community
[00:07:10.350]that's undergone a massive demographic shift.
[00:07:12.848]That makes it unique, but not that unique, right?
[00:07:15.801]Right.
[00:07:16.782]I mean this is Crete.
[00:07:17.889]This is Skylar.
[00:07:18.742]This is Marshall Town, Iowa.
[00:07:20.126]This is many places.
[00:07:21.726]So that has meant that we have whole new communities
[00:07:25.699]in the center of very old communities.
[00:07:28.013]Right.
[00:07:28.846]And often those new communities
[00:07:31.618]have very different languages.
[00:07:33.329]The have very different ideas about what health is,
[00:07:36.641]about how health matters,
[00:07:38.178]about how you get health and achieve health.
[00:07:40.311]They also live in a very different condition.
[00:07:41.841]Most of them are working in the meat packing industry,
[00:07:44.949]and so they don't,
[00:07:46.721]they're no similar to each other
[00:07:47.791]than they are to the folks that they moved in next door to.
[00:07:50.401]So you have folks from Sudan and Somalia,
[00:07:52.489]Guatemala, El Salvador.
[00:07:53.721]You have Corin from Asia.
[00:07:55.689]What we wanted to do was try and use some of our tools
[00:07:59.529]to be able to reach those communities
[00:08:01.689]that don't show up in most of the ways
[00:08:04.100]that data is collected.
[00:08:05.548]So if you do a survey,
[00:08:06.678]you call people on their phone.
[00:08:07.838]You find out where they are and you call their home phone.
[00:08:11.078]We all know that.
[00:08:11.911]We get called all the time at dinner.
[00:08:13.569]Most people don't have a home phone.
[00:08:14.995]Sure.
[00:08:15.828]They have a cell phone,
[00:08:16.661]and their cell phone could be from wherever
[00:08:17.972]they came in to the country.
[00:08:19.084]So some of them have a New York area code.
[00:08:21.501]Many of them are leery of outsiders,
[00:08:24.678]and so won't respond to a knock on the door.
[00:08:27.358]So what we try to do was to implement a project
[00:08:29.998]that could reach those people through other survey means.
[00:08:33.158]The way we do that is we think of human social connections
[00:08:37.625]as something that looks like the worldwide web.
[00:08:40.838]We create a research web crawler essentially.
[00:08:44.206]That is a system of bringing people in
[00:08:47.259]and getting them to refer other people
[00:08:49.070]that walks us across the connections of the network.
[00:08:53.179]In that way,
[00:08:54.012]we learn a lot about what's in there.
[00:08:55.527]But we also have the means
[00:08:57.527]from the kinds of network technologies
[00:08:59.270]that we have to estimate out from a sample
[00:09:02.678]that doesn't look like a random phone call sample.
[00:09:06.099]So we can get good rigorous information,
[00:09:07.870]but we can do it in a way that gets around
[00:09:09.369]some of the problems associated with people
[00:09:11.438]not wanting to come in.
[00:09:12.447]The referral process means that everyone
[00:09:15.078]who comes into the project had been referred to somebody
[00:09:17.539]who had already spoken with us.
[00:09:18.499]They could say,
[00:09:19.339]they could vouch for our
[00:09:21.022]intentions and say who we were and explain things.
[00:09:25.917]I think that that's
[00:09:26.845]that high-touch aspect that you're talking about.
[00:09:29.117]Yes, absolutely.
[00:09:30.226]But it combined with this kind of analytic technology
[00:09:33.106]we get out of the worldwide web,
[00:09:34.734]that is that high-tech component of people coming in,
[00:09:38.082]doing network analysis on doing their,
[00:09:40.381]laying out their networks on a computer,
[00:09:41.850]being analyzed even on the spot sometimes.
[00:09:45.682]That of course was something that allowed us
[00:09:48.659]to do it quickly and easily.
[00:09:50.032]We did 325 interviews in a process of about three weeks.
[00:09:54.299]Those interviews were an hour-and-a-half each,
[00:09:56.042]so if you can imagine our team went full-strength.
[00:10:00.082]But going back to what we were doing with REACH,
[00:10:02.501]all those interviews were actually carried out
[00:10:03.821]by field-trained people from the community.
[00:10:05.740]So I think that's a really critical part of it too.
[00:10:08.679]We bring people in from the community
[00:10:11.367]from the very start of the project,
[00:10:12.900]and then they're involved
[00:10:13.733]in every aspect of the research process.
[00:10:15.760]So it has that high-touch component
[00:10:18.937]carried all the way through.
[00:10:20.396]So critical.
[00:10:21.284]Yeah, and you couldn't do it without the machines.
[00:10:23.196]Yeah.
[00:10:24.029]But the machines alone are not enough.
[00:10:25.068]Listen.
[00:10:25.901]Here's,
[00:10:27.177]here's what I find fascinating about your work.
[00:10:30.606]We know that we have viewers
[00:10:32.966]who look at
[00:10:35.082]sophisticated university research,
[00:10:37.620]which certainly you and your team conduct.
[00:10:40.271]They think of that as being
[00:10:42.260]years of data collection,
[00:10:44.130]then drawn back to the lab Yes.
[00:10:46.351]for tedious analysis perhaps,
[00:10:48.262](laughs)
[00:10:49.095]resulting in-- Can I tell you how tedious?
[00:10:51.214]Sometimes.
[00:10:52.047]That goes on a shelf
[00:10:53.534]that may be of principal interest to other scholars.
[00:10:55.702]Yes.
[00:10:56.809]Your work has impact,
[00:10:58.529]and it has impact very quickly.
[00:11:00.799]I just can't tell you what it meant to me
[00:11:03.628]to go to Lexington here a couple of weeks ago,
[00:11:06.169]and be at that community gathering,
[00:11:08.285]Yeah.
[00:11:09.123]At the Dawson County Historic Home Museum,
[00:11:12.587]and to hear Somali,
[00:11:15.490]grandfather, Yeah.
[00:11:17.699]And youth,
[00:11:18.659]Hispanic, as well as Anglos from the community
[00:11:22.244]talking about
[00:11:23.811]how this project has already
[00:11:27.082]bridged those gaps.
[00:11:28.704]The Hispanic woman who had moved away
[00:11:31.874]because of what she felt were community attitudes
[00:11:35.173]that she just couldn't live with,
[00:11:37.384]has moved back to the community
[00:11:39.074]because she sees this change going on.
[00:11:41.864]Talk just a little bit
[00:11:43.264]about how you drive. Magic.
[00:11:45.887](laughs)
[00:11:46.720]Well there is a bit of that but,
[00:11:48.514]I think it's incredible. Sure.
[00:11:54.005]Again the key thing
[00:11:55.765]is having people involved from the very beginning,
[00:11:58.484]letting some of their interests drive,
[00:12:00.296]and most of the time,
[00:12:01.203]entirely their interest drive the research questions.
[00:12:03.955]I think that was a critical part of what we did.
[00:12:05.835]So I did mention before,
[00:12:07.785]prior to the survey,
[00:12:08.839]we did a large Photo Voice Project
[00:12:10.777]where we actually gave people cameras.
[00:12:12.930]Oh, yes, yes.
[00:12:13.909]And they went out and took pictures of things
[00:12:15.540]that were important to them,
[00:12:16.520]more things they thought
[00:12:17.488]people didn't know about their community,
[00:12:19.258]or aspects of their life that are probably not seen,
[00:12:23.174]that they think almost are boring.
[00:12:25.067]Then we bring them in,
[00:12:25.900]sit around a table,
[00:12:26.733]and they talk to us about what's going on there.
[00:12:28.787]We formed our research questions out of that.
[00:12:30.845]So by the time we got to actually
[00:12:32.677]going into the field and doing research,
[00:12:34.723]it was already being driven by their kinds of,
[00:12:38.132]by the community's input.
[00:12:39.214]That was a big diversity of questions,
[00:12:41.323]so our job as researchers was to try and make that
[00:12:44.555]into a rigorous format,
[00:12:46.092]so that we could get data
[00:12:47.252]that we thought was really actionable data.
[00:12:50.134]Rigorous actionable data.
[00:12:51.523]Because the rigor matters.
[00:12:53.035]Sure, absolutely.
[00:12:53.868]But it started with the questions there,
[00:12:56.812]and they conducted the research,
[00:12:58.545]and so they're itching for the results.
[00:13:00.763]That's one of the nice things about that process.
[00:13:03.963]If you begin with the community's interest,
[00:13:06.435]they're waiting for it to come back.
[00:13:07.905]Yeah.
[00:13:08.738]They took real ownership.
[00:13:09.571]Yes, that was obvious.
[00:13:10.404]I think it often surprises people how much
[00:13:13.894]their kinds of questions and worries and concerns
[00:13:17.665]are actually perfectly legitimate research questions.
[00:13:21.155]That's a fault of the university
[00:13:22.643]that we haven't made that more clear,
[00:13:25.174]that there are really actionable questions out there.
[00:13:27.643]Sure.
[00:13:28.476]Listen, we should tell our viewers
[00:13:30.523]that one of the cool things about this project
[00:13:33.652]is that it is resulting in a very interesting exhibit
[00:13:37.373]called Looking Past Skin Common Threads.
[00:13:40.529]It's going to be
[00:13:42.760]actually a centerpiece
[00:13:45.449]of exhibitions at the Nebraska History Museum.
[00:13:48.216]I believe starting in January?
[00:13:49.938]January,
[00:13:50.776]January 5th I think is the public opening.
[00:13:52.047]It's opened right now out at the Dawson County.
[00:13:55.389]Folks oughta be looking for that
[00:13:57.570]and to be able to come and see real time,
[00:14:00.450]the results of your project.
[00:14:02.821]Yeah, it'll be really exciting.
[00:14:04.859]There's two certain major exhibits.
[00:14:07.341]Yeah, it's a relationship with Sheldon,
[00:14:08.419]did you not form for the development?
[00:14:09.471]Yep.
[00:14:10.304]We're not working with Sharon Kennedy
[00:14:13.311]at the Historical Museum.
[00:14:14.911]That will be two exhibits.
[00:14:16.231]That will be up and they'll be addressing
[00:14:19.473]in some ways that original Photo Voice Project
[00:14:23.269]and more about the kind of health results that we found,
[00:14:26.348]but it's an art piece as well.
[00:14:28.439]I think that that's really critical for giving people
[00:14:31.449]opportunities to engage the work that we do emotionally,
[00:14:35.159]as well as intellectually, aesthetically,
[00:14:38.940]and with some real connection.
[00:14:41.500]I think art does that in some ways
[00:14:43.129]in ways that we can only envy in science.
[00:14:45.837]Well I,
[00:14:46.670]for folks who think
[00:14:47.948]you're a buttoned-up old college professor,
[00:14:50.469]I will always hold a memory of walking
[00:14:52.898]into the museum and here's Kirk doing posters and...
[00:14:56.517]Hand cook and bottle washer.
[00:14:58.010](laughs)
[00:14:58.843]Absolutely.
[00:14:59.676]I knew you were a true believer
[00:15:01.652]in what we were getting ready to tell.
[00:15:04.148]Well listen Kirk,
[00:15:04.981]I just want you to know
[00:15:05.814]the Rural Futures Institute is so proud
[00:15:07.618]to be associated with you and your very eclectic gang
[00:15:11.330]of researchers and difference makers,
[00:15:14.071]but you know we believe this is the path
[00:15:17.119]to impact for rural people.
[00:15:19.489]Connecting people in the community who have said,
[00:15:22.969]we're not okay with where we are.
[00:15:24.687]We think we know where we wanna go.
[00:15:26.608]We want to make it better,
[00:15:28.048]connecting them with people like you and your team,
[00:15:30.431]who can come in and help them. Yeah.
[00:15:32.727]With such sophisticated tools to grapple
[00:15:35.100]with those very difficult issues,
[00:15:37.631]but in as we've described,
[00:15:39.719]a very high-tech Sure.
[00:15:41.409]high-touch approach that we think is central
[00:15:44.119]to the way we do things in Rural Futures Institute.
[00:15:46.340]Thanks.
[00:15:47.239]Anything else you wanna add about your work?
[00:15:50.279]Well, I think you hit it right on the head.
[00:15:52.509]I think that folks in rural communities
[00:15:55.503]are rightfully weary about the intentions and questions
[00:15:58.361]of people who come from the outside.
[00:15:59.863]That high-touch question is really critical.
[00:16:02.732]Our rural people have always been tech-oriented.
[00:16:06.612]I mean, rural doctors are everywhere.
[00:16:08.507]Very true.
[00:16:09.961]Their whole process of rural production
[00:16:11.649]is a trial and error process,
[00:16:12.918]and people are very comfortable with the concept
[00:16:15.489]that their world can change by new tools and new equipment.
[00:16:19.040]So we've actually found that that can work really well.
[00:16:21.421]I know that partly because I'm from a small town,
[00:16:24.000]even though I came here from New York City.
[00:16:25.672](laughs)
[00:16:26.505]I grew up in a place a lot of people have heard of,
[00:16:28.000]but don't know is a small town
[00:16:29.691]called Nantucket, Massachusetts.
[00:16:31.120]Oh yeah, sure.
[00:16:32.101]Which is an island of 8,000 people
[00:16:33.849]with three ferries a day.
[00:16:35.301]If you think you're in the middle of nowhere,
[00:16:37.137]try being 17 miles out in the ocean.
[00:16:39.358](laughs)
[00:16:40.191]So I understand the perspective that says,
[00:16:42.468]we worry about why people will be coming in
[00:16:44.455]and asking a lot of questions,
[00:16:45.678]but I also recognize that people
[00:16:47.358]are really interested and engaged in the kinds of,
[00:16:51.023]and in experimental ways,
[00:16:52.498]about how they can make their lives better,
[00:16:54.230]and I think actually rural people are more adept
[00:16:56.400]at that than urban people in my experience.
[00:16:59.470]Thank you for the opportunity.
[00:17:01.507]Well, we are proud of the work that you're doing
[00:17:03.530]on behalf of the University of Nebraska,
[00:17:05.238]and certainly on behalf of rural people everywhere.
[00:17:07.358]Well listen,
[00:17:08.191]we want you to stay in touch
[00:17:09.110]with the Rural Futures Institute.
[00:17:10.702]Look at our newly redesigned website.
[00:17:13.680]It's a lot of fun,
[00:17:15.142]and know that in weeks ahead,
[00:17:16.910]we'll be coming back with another episode
[00:17:19.200]of Catch Up With Chuck
[00:17:21.080]looking at rural people,
[00:17:22.359]rural places, innovators,
[00:17:23.980]thinkers, doers,
[00:17:25.030]artists, and others
[00:17:26.144]who are helping to make rural places
[00:17:28.239]a legitimate best choice for worthwhile living.
[00:17:30.438]Thanks for being with us.

The screen size you are trying to search captions on is too small!

You can always jump over to MediaHub and check it out there.

Comments

0 Comments

Catch Up With Chuck | Episode 4

Description

Searchable Transcript

Comments icon comment

Related Channels

Comments