In addition to its capabilities for designing and running all types of behavioral and social science research studies, NERI offers the following specific services:
- Study quality assessment
- Internal and external validity
- Statistical analysis
- Protocol, case report forms, and informed consent forms development
- Development and validation of survey instruments to measure patient-reported outcomes
- Literature reviews and meta-analysis
- Scientific conference presentations
- Manuscript development and publication
Specialized methodological expertise is available for mixed-mode data collection, and recruitment of community-based samples, including difficult and hard-to reach populations. Studies are conducted with all age groups, with a particular interest in adults as they age. NERI has specific behavioral and social science research expertise in the following areas:
- Behavioral aging
- Daily function and disability
- Cognition and cognitive performance
- Relationship between cognition and daily function
- Fear of falling and falls risks
- Living with chronic health conditions
- Impact of disease on quality of life and well-being
- Self-management of health conditions
- Symptom perception and burden, including cultural differences
- Effect of symptoms and symptom burden on daily function and quality of life
- Use of technology in managing health conditions
- Depression as an antecedent, outcome, and moderator of disease
- Lifestyle activities and changes
- Effect of attitudes and beliefs on lifestyle activities and changes
- Interventions to change lifestyle factors
- End of life
- Preferences for end of life care
- Advance care planning and communication with others
- Effects of culture vs education on preferences for end of life care
- Interventions to facilitate advance care planning
- Social networks and social support
- Effects on service utilization
- Effects on health-care seeking and communication with health care providers
- Social relationships and quality of life and well-being
- Effects on self-management of chronic conditions
- Information seeking about health conditions
- Sources of information and variations by social factors
- Antecedents and outcomes of information seeking
- Contribution of race/ethnicity vs social class (education, income) to:
- Health status
- Service utilization, both formal and informal
- Treatment outcomes
- Long-term care service utilization
- Informal caregiving for disabled adults
- Mediators and moderators of utilization
- Patterns of utilization over time
- Effects of race/ethnicity vs social class
- Patient and provider education programs
- Provider assessment of and communication with older drivers
- Provider skill training: assessment, communication, care planning, ethics and clinical decisions
- Provider-patient communication, both in general and context-specific
- Development and testing of measures
- Development of new measures
- Validity and reliability testing of existing measures in new populations, contexts, or mode of administration
Behavioral and Social Science research at NERI relies on our broad multidisciplinary expertise to conduct appropriate observational surveys and experimental studies and analyze the resulting data both quantitatively and qualitatively.