Monday, May 18
Students endeavor to cross gulf between study,
implementation
Community contribution tough goal for academics to reachBy
Audrey Beck
Daily Bruin Contributor
At a recent forum, graduate and post-doctoral students got a
taste of the ongoing controversy over the practical use of social
science research on HIV.
Students presented their research Thursday to professionals in
the field of HIV research and treatment, sparking a dialogue on the
problems faced when transforming research into implementation.
"Students need to work with community programs to plan research
from the beginning, to help them decide what the important research
questions are for the community," said Lynda Doll, chief of
Behavioral Intervention with the Center for Disease Control
(CDC).
Students from the sociology, epidemiology, health sciences and
psychology departments presented a range of global and local
HIV-related studies.
The research presented primarily focused on how to achieve
optimal patient health care, how risk behavior correlates to
infection rates and what behaviors are typical of infected
individuals.
One such project by epidemiology student Leng Bun Hor targets
Cambodia as a country on the verge of an HIV epidemic.
He projects that, by the year 2000, around 12,000 people will be
diagnosed annually with AIDS. Her six target groups from antenatal
clinics included police and military servicemen.
While many who attended found the research engaging and
educational, the students soon found they needed to take their
research a step further to make it digestible for those who work
day to day with HIV patients.
Doll pointed out the incomplete bridge between science and
practice, citing barriers within the community programs as part of
the problem.
Nina Harawa, an epidemiology student, said she has often
received a luke-warm response from community programs. She
attributes this to the fact that the programs are constantly
receiving requests from researchers to fill out questionnaires and
surveys.
Harawa suggested that community programs are often too
overburdened and understaffed to receive studies with as much
enthusiasm as researchers might like.
Part of the problem also lies within the research itself. Old,
irrelevant or contradictory data is often common within the
research community, Doll said.
Ana Rodriguez of Project New Hope said there is insufficient
data on the Latino community in Los Angeles, which make up a large
portion of the people she deals with.
Rodriguez also said in the past she has found it difficult to
work with researchers because they did not provide any links from
their research to the community.
There are also some problems inherent in the academic
system.
Some students adopt the attitude that, "I am going to get my
honors, my degree or my tenure and I’ll think about the application
later," said Fernando Argosino, a community organizer with the
Asian American Drug Abuse Program.
Trista Bingham, who researched Los Angeles middle school
students, said it has always been a battle to connect research to
the community needs. She was surprised to have that acknowledged by
the CDC.
Community program professionals came forward with their own
frustrations following Doll’s speech.
After hearing the discussion, Bingham said she is much more
aware of the magnitude of the struggle between research and
implementation.
Professor of sociology Oscar Grusky reemphasized the need for
researchers to make a contribution to the community.
"The real world doesn’t care whether its sociology, epidemiology
or psychology, as long as it works," he said.
KAREN ROWE
Rosa Parks speaks at UCLA’s annual Marathon Reading.