Dr. Lori Peek, Director of the Natural Hazards Center (NHC) in the Institute of Behavioral Science, was interviewed for a CU Boulder Today article focusing on the social science impacts of COVID-19.  The NHC launched the COVID-19 Global Research Registry for Publich Health and Social Sciences this week, cataloguing projects and helping create collaboraton across various disciplines and institutions.  In addition to reserachers studying the social, behavioral, or public health aspects of the pandemic, other such as journalists and funding agencies will be able to use the registry to look for story ideas, fellow researchers, and possible funding sources.

“This is a transformative moment for the social and behavioral sciences,” said Center Director and sociology Professor Lori Peek. “We have decades of lessons learned from past disasters to apply. But this is the first global event in living memory that reveals so fully our need to understand human behavior. We are mobilizing to learn from it and use that knowledge for public good.”

(CU Boulder Today: "COVID-19: A 'transofmative' moment for social science.", by Lisa Marshall)

As part of efforts coordinated with CONVERGE, the NSF funded center within the NHC to coordinate social science research in reponse to natural disasters, Peek is also hosting a virtual forum today, Friday April 3, 2020 from 3-4:30pm MDT to bring social scientists who are studying the pandemic together. 

Dr. Lori Peek, Director of IBS's Natural Hazards Center, and Dr. Courtney Welton-Mitchell, NHC Research Associate, were both interviewed for an article posted in the Daily Camera on March 19, 2020.  The full article is here (behind a paywall).  The article addressed anti-Asian discrimination, research opportunities, and the sociological impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on everyone, but especially vulnerable populations.  

“It is not a moment to put up walls,” Peek said. “This isn’t a moment to engage in blaming and stigmatizing and scapegoating. It’s important, not only how we can take care of ourselves, but how we take care of those around us.” (CU Boulder Natural Hazards Center Focused on coronavirus challenge – Daily Camera, 3/19/2020)

Welton-Mitchell commented on the needs for social interactions and support during this trying time.  

Welton-Mitchell said… "How can we love and support people in creative and innovative ways, that might take a little mental acrobatics? We are up to the challenge, I believe, as a society.”  (CU Boulder Natural Hazards Center Focused on coronavirus challenge – Daily Camera, 3/19/2020)

Lori Peek also wrote an article on the NHC website that poses the question "What holds society together in times like these?" 

This is the moment for us to recognize our interdependence and to recommit to our collective sense of responsibility to one another. In recognizing this responsibility, we must know that we already have the answer inside of us to the question posed earlier: What holds society together during a time like this?

We do. 

("The Ties that Bind," Lori Peek, 3/20/2020)

Kathleen Tierney, former Director of the Natural Hazards Center here at IBS, has recently been interviewed by multiple media sources about the COVID-19 situation.  

Listen to Kathleen Tierney on Colorado Public Radio (90.1 FM and https://www.cpr.org/) today (March 11) at 9am.  

Tierney also appeared on Al Jazeera TV station discussing COVID-19. 

You can also read The New Yorker column (summarized below) here. 

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As the coronavirus has spread around the world, people have begun taking cautionary measures to prevent the spread of the disease. Supermarkets have sold out of non-perishable items and sanitizing products, and there is now an increased emphasis on stopping us from infecting each other rather than stopping others from infecting us. CU Administration has been taking measures to encourage remote work environments and additional support for students and staff.  

Although many are citing COVID-19 as a cause for panic, Kathleen Tierney, former Director of the Natural Hazards Center here at IBS, believes otherwise. “We prefer to think in terms of behavior, in conditions of uncertainty,” she says. Many behavioral scientists, epidemiologists, and psychologists are hesitant to use the word “panic.” They believe Americans are acting in a manner that shows they are distrustful of our leadership. Americans are not panicking and losing control of normal, routine actions. Instead, Tierney notes that Americans are taking cautionary measures because they are unsure if our government can help them through this crisis and so they have adopted the “every man for himself” mentality.

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Article written by Sierra Gonzalez, IBS Student Assistant and Strategic Communications Major.

On February 25, Myron Gutmann, Director of CU Boulder’s Institute of Behavioral Science (IBS), participated in meetings to help inform congressional efforts to reauthorize the National Science Foundation (NSF) this Congress. Gutmann met with the offices Senator Cory Gardner and Congressman Ed Perlmutter, who serve on the committees of jurisdiction, as well as a bipartisan group of House Science Committee staff. In addition, Gutmann met with new leadership at the NSF to offer his assistance on issues of interest to the agency. Gutmann served as Assistant Director at NSF from 2009 to 2013, leading the agency’s Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate.

David Pyrooz, an associate professor of sociology at CU Boulder and a faculty associate at IBS, recently published a book that explores the inner workings of prison gangs. Pyrooz, along with his co-author, spent nine months interviewing inmates at two of the oldest prisons in Texas. In his book, Competing for Control: Gangs and the Social Orders of Prison, he breaks down some of the stereotypes surrounding prison gangs and gang members, and explores what gangs can and can’t offer from the eyes of actual members. 

As gang-related violence and homicide in prison begins to rise, Pyrooz encourages people to think about how former prisoners might assimilate back into society after they are released. “Do you want them to leave on better or worse terms than when they arrived?” He asks. He suggests that if the prison system provided things inmates need from the beginning- such as safety and community- they would never turn to gangs in the first place. Read more about David Pyrooz’s findings from his book here.

Since 1990, birth weights in the United States have declined due to the rise in cesarean sections. Andrea Tilstra, a PhD candidate in the Department of Sociology, and Ryan Masters, a social demographer in the Institute of Behavioral Sciences, worked together to research the cause of declining birth weights. Together, they analyzed over 23 million single births between 1990 and 2013 and came to the conclusion that an increase in obstetric interventions, specifically cesarean sections, has caused the decline in birth weights.  

“By intervening in the pregnancy instead of allowing it to reach its natural finality we are shifting when birth happens, and that can have public health consequences,” Tilstra says. Lower birth weights have been linked to a depletion in long-term health and “lower educational attainment”. She warns that while cesarean sections and inductions can be necessary, it is always okay for a healthy mother to question an induced birth and finish the full term of her pregnancy naturally. Read more about their findings here.

IBS's Center for the Study and Prevention of Violence (CSPV) was highlighted by the Colorado Arts and Sciences Magazine for their amazing work in securing an almost $1 million grant to evaluate the Colorado Threat Assessment and Management Protocol within Colorado schools. CSPV will be working with the Colorado School Safety Resource Center (CSSRC) to see just how well the protocol that was developed in 2011 has been working.  The grant is funded for three years in which they will update, refine, and pilot the protocol within five schools, then to follow up with the updated materials being used in an additional 30 schools around Colorado.  Congrats to Sabrina Arredondo Mattson, the lead investigator and IBS research associate on the grant.  And congrats to CSPV for their hard work to keep students safe from violence.  

Four CU Boulder faculty members, including Lori Peek, Professor of Sociology and Director of the Natural Hazards Center, were recently awarded the Mellon grant. This prestigious award grants the team $225,000 from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation towards their environmental futures seminar. You can read more about their year-long program here. This is the first year CU has been selected to apply for the Mellon Sawyer Seminar Series grant.

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Article written by Sierra Gonzalez, IBS Student Assistant and Strategic Communications Major.

Dr. Lori Peek, Director of the Natural Hazards Center here at IBS, was co-author on a piece published in Nature this week.  The full article, titled "Disaster-zone research needs a code of conduct" is available here.  

Most countries do not provide ethical guidance for researchers, and universities have widely varying standards for the protection of study participants. The UNDRR (United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction) is a trusted convener of scientists and practitioners globally. It could serve as a focal point for the development and implementation of an ethical code of conduct for researchers in disaster zones. As disasters unfold around the globe, the need for such a code of conduct becomes ever more urgent.

Nature 575, 440-442 (2019)