1. State your health outcome of interest. (It could be the one you used for week #2 or another one.) Pick two key behaviors that are important factors leading to your health outcome. Explain the importance of these behaviors either for etiology, prevention, or intervention. (If none of the behaviors in the readings are important for your health outcome, suggest another behavior that is.)
I study opioid use on hospital discharge. This is more of a healthcare outcome as opposed to a strictly clinical outcome, but it is mediated by health and substance use disorder is a clinical entity. Behaviors that contribute to opioid use include substance use, family circumstances and social circles, education, and access to medication assisted therapy.
2. Describe how you would study the role of one of the behaviors described for question #1 and your health outcome of interest. Incorporate a social factor (e.g. race/ethnicity, social exclusion, stress) in the study approach.
I would be interested in ways and disparities in which African-American patients access medication assisted therapy on discharge. This would involve looking at referrals to MAT providers on discharge from inpatient service and outpatient referral numbers for patients diagnosed with SUD.
3. If key health behaviors (e.g. smoking, exercise, nutritious diet) are strongly influenced by neighborhood, income, and/or education, do we need to continue to study how these behaviors influence health outcomes? Why or why not?
Absolutely. I think all of these research questions are like a statistical model with the outcome being mediated by multiple variables and the interactions between these variables. If we fail to consider and study these behaviors, then our interventions will fail because they are not adequately addressing the entire scope of the problem.