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We have had a very busy month at the SSRC, with many new and renewed projects, impactful international research, and some personnel changes. As the new fall semester begins, we hope that our impact in the state and nation will continue to grow. 

We hope you'll take just a few minutes to read the latest news and updates from the SSRC. I  encourage you to share these monthly updates with others who may be interested in our work.

Thank you for your time and continued support of the work at the SSRC.  We look forward to continued success this year.

Sincerely,
  
Arthur G. Cosby, Ph.D.
Giles Distinguished Professor & Director
Social Science Research Center
VisitorsPersonnel
On July 15th the SSRC's current research assistant Gina Rico Mendez successfully defended her dissertation for a PhD in Public Policy and Administration. Her dissertation titled "Governing the Rurals: Food Security and Governance in the 21st Century" develops a theory about the consolidation of state legitimacy given transformations in food security. Dr. Rico Mendez's work utilized findings from Colombia, before and after the 1990´s. The dissertation illustrates the impacts of a change in the concept of food security and its effects on the administrative capacity in rural areas. Findings indicate that policies which support large scale agriculture for export productive commodities and lead to violence concentrate rural land ownership and have altered the structure of rural governance. While food security initiatives and policies has been a boon to world health, this dissertation illustrates how it has also brought about changes in state consolidation.  She will continue working on food security related issues as she has been awarded a post-doctoral fellowship, jointly funded by the Department Sociology and the SSRC. 

NPNew Projects
The Mississippi Translational Research on Interventions for Adolescents in the Legal System (TRIALS) Research Center has recently been awarded Year 4 funding by the National Institutes of Health.  Dr. Angela Robertson will continue to serve as Director of this 5-year study.  The goal of this collaborative project is to promote the adoption and routine use of evidence-based practices in outpatient treatment settings for juvenile offenders in selected drug court programs in Mississippi. 

Mr. Matthew Campassi will serve as Director for the Mississippi Alcohol Safety Education Program's (MASEP) Software Development Project. This project seeks to develop and enhance software for use by MASEP. This project was awarded to the Innovative Data Laboratory by MASEP.  

Dr. Angela Robertson will lead a team of research associates and graduate students in revising and updating the MASEP curriculum.  The fifth edition of the MASEP curriculum was produced in July 2013.  The curriculum upgrades will better address drug-impaired driving, including prescription drug use, reflect the changes in Mississippi's impaired driving laws, and improve the provision of personalized feedback to program participants based on their responses to an assessment. 

Dr. David McMillen will serve as Principal Investigator for year 19 of the Pathfinders project. The general purpose of Pathfinders is to assist freshmen in becoming personally responsible and self-directed in an environment that is academically more demanding and less regulated than high school by promoting responsible class attendance. The project, which is funded yearly by the Office of the Provost at Mississippi State University, has led to a 10% increase in 6-year graduation rates since it began in 1998. 

Dr. Robert McMillen will serve as Principal Investigator of the "Surveillance and Evaluation Services for the Mississippi Comprehensive Tobacco Control Program" July 2016 - June 2017. The project will seek to develop and implement a system of surveillance and evaluation for programs and services administered by the Mississippi State Department of Health (MSDH) Office of Tobacco Control (OTC). Mrs. Nell Valentine will serve as Co-PI on the project. This project is funded by the MSDH. 

On the HorizonHorizon
Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale, Dr. Melanie Loehwing (MSU Department of Communication), and Dr. Michael Breazeale (MSU College of Business) will give a Breakout Session presentation at the   2016 National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media , which will be held in Atlanta August 23-25, 2016. Entitled, Minding the (Funding) Gap YR2: Mobilizing Service-Learning to Sustain eHealth Outreach to African American Teen Moms, this presentation will focus on how the authors used the second of two service learning courses among university students to help build content for the eBaby4u.com project. This presentation is builds upon work supported by the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, under award number 2012-4610020098-12111382 (K. Ragsdale, PI) and by Mississippi State University through a MAFES Special Research Initiative Grant.

Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale, Dr. Mary Read-Wahidi, and Audrey Reid will give a poster presentation at the 2016 National Conference on Health Communication, Marketing, and Media . Their poster is entitled, Focus4Teens Initiative: Developing Theory-Driven YR1 Needs Assessments for Teen Pregnancy Prevention in the Mississippi Delta. This presentation provides information on how the team used the Ecological Model as a theoretical framework to develop of Focus4Teens Evaluation-Year 1 (K. Ragsdale, PI; M. Read-Wahidi, Co-PI).  The evaluation project is funded by the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) through a grant to Mississippi First to reduce adolescent pregnancy in Mississippi.
SurveyLabSurvey Lab
On behalf of the Shelter Medicine Program at the College of Veterinary Medicine at Mississippi State University and the Pet Leadership Council, the Survey Research Laboratory is conducting a census of more than 3,000 animal shelters across the nation. The goal of this research is to derive an estimate of the total number of dogs available for adoption in the US and develop a better understanding of the movement of these animals between shelters. This research is being led by Dr. Kimberly Woodruff, Assistant Clinical Professor and Service Chief of Shelter Medicine at Mississippi State University's College of Veterinary Medicine.  The data collection efforts are being directed by Dr. John F. Edwards, MAFES Research Scientist and Coordinator of SSRC Laboratories.

MASEPMASEP
The MASEP Annual Training was held July 22-23, 2016 at the Mill in Starkville, MS. MASEP Operations staff coordinating the event included Mr. Billy Brister, Ms. Jennifer Alberson, Ms. Jean Mann, Ms. Melinda Hardin, Ms. Lacey Breen, Mr. Chuck Dawkins, and Ms. Blythe McCance, Ms. Kristina Magness, Ms. Mary Bess Nicholson and Mr. Joseph Arthur.

During the training the facilitators toured the MASEP central office as well as the SSRC. They were briefed about the in-office procedures of MASEP and m et some of the SSRC staff such as Lisa Moore, Lori Stubbs, and Carol White. Dr. John Edwards gave a presenta tion on the Survey Research Lab, while Dr. Angela Robertson, Direc tor of Research for MASEP, gave a research update to the facilitators.

Guest speakers included MSU Police Dept. Captain Kenny Rogers, Molly Miller of the Attorney Generals Office, Dr. John Edwards, Matthew Campassi, Geoffrey Stebbins, David Martin, Scott Glasgow, Shane Kelly, and Shawn Word.

MASEP facilitators were presented with awards for their dedication to MASEP. Members of the 2016 Advisory Committee, Walter Armstrong, Beth Fenech, Kathy Jones, Trip Bayles and Dewey Wells, were recognized for their contributions to the program.

Facilitators were also recognized for their years of service. Mark Cossitt, Scott Glasgow, Shane Kelly, and Adrian Starkey were presented with 5-Year Honorable Mentions Awards.

Joe Belling, Jason Carney, Chuck Dawkins, Carl Gangemi, and Teresa Johnson received 10-Year Service Awards. Robert Baysinger and Blythe McCance received 15-Year Awards, while Betty Jones and Nelson Tate received 20-Year Service Awards. Gloria Hamilton and Doug Stewart received 25-Year Service Awards, and Jim Lightsey received a 35-Year Award. Richard Odum received a 40-Year Service Award.
International ResearchIntResearch
USAID Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab Co-PI Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale and SSRC Research Assistant Audrey Reid traveled to Ghana during June 15-July 7, 2016 to implement the Ghana Soybean Uptake & Network Survey (SUNS)-Wave I. They were assisted by their in-country partner, Catholic Relief Services (CRS), including Kris Ozar (Country Representative), Melissa Kreek (Head of Programming), Mawuli Asigbee (Program Manager-Agriculture), Philip Atiim (Agriculture Senior Program Officer), Ewurabena Yanyi-Akofur (MEAL Coordinator), Emmanuel Osei-Mensah (MEAL Specialist), and Ebenezer Balboe (IT Officer). They supervised survey implementation among four teams of 20 enumerators who collected 820 surveys during approximately four weeks of data collection.

Concurrent with the Ghana SUNS-Wave I enumeration, Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale, Audrey Reid, and CRS' Emmanuel Osei-Mensah conducted two ICT4AgD (Information & Communication Technology for Agricultural Development) focus groups in Karaga District and CRS' Philip Atiim conducted two ICT4AgD focus groups in Tolon District. These ICT4AgD focus groups were conducted separately among women soybean farmers (N=20) and men soybean farmers (N=15) to explore how men and women soybean farmers differ in terms of access to and use of cell phones for the vital farming information they need. One of the most striking results was that 14 of 15 male participants owned cell phones 93%) yet 11 of 20 female participants owned cell phones (55%).

Photos taken by Kathleen Ragsdale
Publications & Reportspubandreports
Ragsdale, K., Cross, G. W. (2016). Can Children's Museums Deliver Effective Health Outreach? Evaluation Results of the HealthWorks! Be A Food Groupie Program for Elementary Students. Journal of Health Disparities Research & Practice, 9(1), 137-152.

Ragsdale, K., Read-Wahidi, M. R., Wei, T. (2016). WEAI+ Final Results: Gender Equity in Soybean Production in Rural Ghana. USAID Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab. Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University.doi: 10.13140/RG.2.1.1421.4005. The full report is available at here.

Ragsdale, K., Read-Wahidi, M. R., Reid, A. (2016). Focus4Teens Quarterly Report: YR1 Youth Focus Groups. Mississippi First and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC). Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University.

Ragsdale, K., Read-Wahidi, M. R., Reid, A. (2016). Focus4Teens YR1 Provider Interviews: AEH Clarksdale Community-Based Clinic. Mississippi First and the CDC. Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University.

Ragsdale, K., Read-Wahidi, M. R., Reid, A. (2016). Focus4Teens YR1 Provider Interviews: AEH Quitman School-Based Clinic. Mississippi First and the CDC. Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University.

Ragsdale, K., Read-Wahidi, M. R., Reid, A. (2016). Focus4Teens YR1 Provider Interviews: AEH Tunic Community & School-Based Clinics. Mississippi First and the CDC. Social Science Research Center, Mississippi State University.

Presentations, Panels & Conferences presentations
Ellithorpe, C., & Sinclair, H. C. (2016, July). To replicate or not to replicate? That is no longer the question regarding the Romeo and Juliet effect. Presented at the International Association for Relationship Research (IARR), Toronto, ON.

Robert McMillen attended the American Academy of Pediatrics' Tobacco Consortium Summer Meeting July 19-20, 2016.

Sinclair, H. C., Goldberg, R., Wu, S., Krallman, A., & Ellithorpe, C. (2016, July). Advice & Attributions: Examining the relationship sense-making process between friends. Presented at the International Association for Relationship Research (IARR), Toronto, ON.

Southward, Linda H., Harris, Colleen. (2016, July). Oral presentation titled "Mississippi KIDS COUNT Updates: Child Health, Chronic Absenteeism & County Rankings." Natchez Convention Center. Presented at the Mississippi Early Childhood Education conference.
 
Southward, Linda H. "Children's Health: How are we Doing? Using Mississippi KIDS COUNT Data." July 22, 2016. Mississippi Health Summit, Hattiesburg, MS.

Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale, Dr. Mary Read-Wahidi, and Audrey Reid gave an hour-long presentation, WEAI+ Final Results: Gender Equity in Soybean Production in Rural Ghana, at the American Embassy in Accra, Ghana on July 6, 2016. The USAID/Ghana Mission's Office of Economic Growth personnel who attended the presentation included Jenna Tajchman-Trofim (Agriculture Development Officer), Samson Konlan (Food Security Specialist), Gloria Odoom (Project Management Specialist-Agriculture, and Susan Bonney (Program Coordinating Specialist). Also in attendance was Mahama Abdulai, Budget and Reporting Specialist with the USAID/Ghana Mission's Office of Program and Project Development.

Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale, Dr. Mary Read-Wahidi, and Audrey Reid gave an invited Breakout Session presentation and a poster presentation, Focus4Teens YR1 Results: Using Teen Focus Groups to Inform Pregnancy Prevention among Mississippi Delta Teens, at the 2016 National Reproductive Health Conference (NRHC) held in Chicago on July 24-27, 2016.  Both presentations concentrated on preliminary results of Focus4Teens Evaluation-Year 1 (K. Ragsdale, PI; M. Read-Wahidi, Co-PI).  The evaluation project is funded by the
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention
(CDC) through a grant to Mississippi First to reduce adolescent pregnancy in Mississippi. The NRHC presentations highlighted key findings from three Youth Focus Groups conducted among 35 teens in the Mississippi Delta in April 2016 to explore barriers youths' perceptions of barriers to seeking sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, such as concerns about privacy/confidentiality being breached; lack of knowledge and misconceptions about birth control options; and need and desire local youth friendly SRH services.

Photos taken by Mary Reid-Wahidi and Audrey Reid

The Ghana SUNS Enumerator Training Workshop I was conducted in Yendi, Ghana on June 20-22, 2016. USAID Feed the Future Soybean Innovation Lab (SIL) personnel included SIL Co-PI Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale and SSRC Research Assistant Audrey Reid. Catholic Relief Services (CRS) personnel CRS personnel included Mawuli Asigbee (Program Manager-Agriculture), Philip Atiim (Agriculture Senior Program Officer), Ewurabena Yanyi-Akofur (MEAL Coordinator), Emmanuel Osei-Mensah (MEAL Specialist), and Ebenezer Balboe (IT Officer). The Ghana SUNS Enumerator Training Workshop II was conducted at CRS headquarters in Tamale, Ghana on June 27-28, 2016.  SIL personnel included Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale and Audrey Reid, and CRS personnel included Philip Atiim, Emmanuel Osei-Mensah, and Ebenezer Balboe. During these workshops, we trained 20 enumerators in the Ghana SUNS-Wave I protocol, including protection of human subjects and how to correctly implement the Ghana SUNS-Wave I using iPads and large-format Google maps for 12 villages in Ghana's Northern Region.


Photo taken by Catholic Relief Services

Dr. Kathleen Ragsdale attended the one-week course, Digital Strategies in Health Communication, at the Tufts University School of Medicine Summer Institute in Boston, Massachusetts, during July 18-22, 2016. The intensive course focused on hands-on activities and methodologies, such as persona development, SWOT analyses, and formative evaluation. These tools were then directly applied to a 'real world' case study. For the 2016 Summer Institute, the 20 attendees were assigned to four-person teams to revise the digital strategy of ABC News Medical Unit . Daily assignment, lectures, and presentations by distinguished guest speakers culminated in final team presentations that were evaluated by an expert panel that included ABC News Managing Editor Dan Childs , ConsumerReportsHealth Senior Director, Tara Montgomery, and Tufts faculty/course director, Dr. Lisa Gualtieri . Information about the 2017 course is available here.

The Mississippi DUI Forum, sponsored by the Social Science Research Center at Mississippi State University, was conducted on July 6-7, 2016, at the Marriott Hotel in Jackson.  Cosponsors were the Mississippi Office of Highway Safety, the Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police, Sobriety Trained Officers Representing Mississippi, the Mississippi Department of Public Safety, and the Mississippi Attorney General's Office.  The total attendance was 155 people and included law enforcement officers, prosecutors, judges, court clerks, driver record systems managers, mental health/substance abuse professionals, probation companies, advocacy groups, ignition interlock providers, drug court coordinators, and others interested in the DUI system.  It is believed that the Forum was the first time all of these agencies/groups had met together.  Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves, Sen. David Parker, and Speaker of the House of Representatives Phillip Gunn were in attendance and addressed the Forum participants.
 
The format for the Forum included several presentations on topics of interest to those in attendance.  These included an overview of the Mississippi DUI system, a Legislative update, a presentation on related research and statistics, and a discussion of legal issues.  Also, the Forum participants were asked to take part in one of six breakout groups (Law Enforcement, Court Clerks, Judges, Prosecutors, Driver Records/Systems managers, and Mental Health/Substance Abuse Treatment providers).  Each of these groups developed a list of issues and concerns and made recommendations for improvements in the DUI system.  These were presented to the group as a whole so that each breakout group came to better understand the concerns of the other groups.  These issues and concerns along with the recommendations will be included in a report which will be provided to the Forum attendees, the Legislature, and other interested parties.  
July 2016

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