Research

The Lai Lab works on numerous projects concurrently. Many of these projects intersect with the fields of biostatistics, clinical psychology, and public health. Topics of study include child trauma, traumatic stressors, and disaster exposure. Please see below for an overview of our current projects.

Evaluating the Health Impacts of Disasters on Youth 

Funded by the Grodman Family Foundation 

Principal Investigator: Betty S. Lai, Ph.D.

As climate change exacerbates the intensity and frequency of disasters, the need for post-disaster services will outstrip resources. Disaster management experts advocate implementing stepped care models of intervention after disasters, with the goal of stratifying youth to ensure those with highest needs receive the most intense interventions. A critical barrier to implementing stepped care models is the dearth of information on the effects of disasters on a range of health behaviors among youth aged 15 - 24. Research with youth after disasters has focused almost exclusively on mental health outcomes. We propose novel methodological and statistical approaches to overcome limitations in the existing literature and rigorously evaluate the health effects of disasters on youth. Using two large population-based surveys (the Youth Behavior Risk Survey and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System), we will conduct difference-in-differences models to evaluate the effects of Hurricane Sandy (October 2012) on youth mental health and health behaviors. We will examine the differential impact of exposure to Hurricane Sandy on youth with a social justice focus. Disparities in adolescent mental health and health behaviors are often evident, increasing with age, but also vary across sex and race/ethnicity (Kann et al., 2018). Disasters exacerbate social disparities. This analysis will help identify youth who may be particularly vulnerable to the effects of disasters in order to target interventions.

Evaluating Science-Based Video Communication. 

Funded by the Schiller Institute for Integrated Science and Society and the Research Across Departments Grant at Boston College.

Principal Investigator: Betty S. Lai, Ph.D.

A critical barrier to training scientists in research communication is the lack of evidence-based practices for how scientists should engage the public. Taking this paucity of knowledge as impetus for research, this proposal seeks to develop systematic guidance for scientists on how to engage the public through video-based platforms. We focus on videos because videos have become the dominant media for communicating on social networks. To illustrate, internal documents from the technology company Meta expressed alarm at the rapid migration of young users from their photo-based platform to video-based platforms (Frenkel et al., 2021). For example, the video-based platform TikTok has over 1 billion active users (Frenkel et al., 2021). Contemporary youth are using new platforms to navigate their social lives and also education content. This proposal directly addresses the Research Across Departments and Schools Grant mission by fostering a new interdisciplinary research collaboration that cannot be solved through one disciplinary lens. This project will develop evidence-based practice guidelines for video-based science communication through these aims:

Aim 1: Conducting a systematic review of the science communication literature.

Aim 2: Evaluating science-based video content of top creators on video-based social networking platforms.

Aim 3: Experimentally manipulating and testing science communication strategies identified in aims 1 and 2 to evaluate their effectiveness.