Egocentric Networks Mini-Conference

July 6-7, 2023 on the UC Berkeley Campus

Cosponsored by the Center for Economics and Demography of Aging (CEDA), the Berkeley Population Center (BPC) and the UCNets team, with partial funding from NICHD P2CHD073964 and NIA P30AG012839.

This small meeting consists of speakers covering a wide variety of topics relative to egocentric networks, small focused discussion groups, and ample time for our own networking and developing new connections. Lunch will be served on Thursday.

View the preliminary program as of June 17 2023.

Speakers include:

Shira Offer, Bar Ilan University,  Claude Fischer, UC Berkeley and Keun Bok Lee, UCLA
“Who Comes, Who Goes, Who Stays? Alters’ Trajectories Through Egos’ Networks”

Mamadou Habib Diallo and Guillaume Favre, University of Toulouse
“A more cohesive social life ? a study on personal networks in the Republic of Guinea”

Marva Goodson-Miller, Arizona State University
“The Structural Embeddedness, Characteristics, and Stories of Crime-Involved Women’s Helpful and Harmful Egocentric Network Members”

Alex Shpenev, Arushi Saxena, Hans-Peter Kohler, Cristina Bicchieri, University of Pennsylvania
“Toilet Use as a Descriptive Norm: Egocentric Analysis using Social Norms theory”

Roberto Cantillan Carrasco, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
“Educational mobility, homophily, and social closure”

Hsinfei Tu, UMass Amherst  “A more homophilious life? Social network dynamics and life transitions.”

Tara McKay, Nathaniel Tran, Niya Kari, Lana  Trautman and Kirsty Clark, Vanderbilt University
“Effects of Discrimination on Sleep Quality: A Driver of LGBTQ Health Disparities”

With keynote address from Thomas Valente, University of Southern California.

To register, visit: https://forms.gle/MQMNjqtjGvQHp4Ca8

Deadline for registration: June 26 or till full.

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All 3 Waves of Data on ICPSR

We are pleased to announce that all three waves of data plus documentation can be found on the ICPSR/NACDA archives. The URL is
https://www.icpsr.umich.edu/web/ICPSR/studies/36975.

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Ego-Centric Panel Data Symposium, August 6-7, 2020

We are happy to announce we are now accepting abstracts for presentation at the UC Berkeley Social Networks Symposium.

Keynote address by Brea Perry,
Associate Vice Provost for Social Sciences,
Professor of Sociology, Indiana University.


This brief two-day meeting (August 6-7, 2020) is for researchers interested in examining longitudinal data on ego-centric networks. It will be held virtually on Zoom just before the originally scheduled American Sociological Association 2020 conference. The event will be from approximately 9 AM PDT to 2 PM PDT each day. There will be a break for lunch and to be away from the screen, but the Zoom meeting will remain open during that time for networking.

Register for the event and, if desired, sign up for Breakout Sessions even if you have registered previously. Also, this Symposium is free to attend and open to all who are interested, but they must be registered to receive the Zoom link and password. Please forward this email to those in your network who may be interested in attending. You must register by August 3rd.

You may still register for the symposium and sign up for breakout groups(limited availability in order to ensure participation). The final program is HERE
Using Longitudinal Ego-Centric Data for Networks and Health Research  
Personal network characteristics, including the structure, composition, and function of the relationships we hold with family members and friends are important for health. Yet, the existing body of literature draws primarily from cross-sectional data.  

The recent completion of publicly available panel data collected by major network studies (NSHAP, UCNets, and LASA) has presented a prime opportunity for investigators to convene and discuss ways to approach the many challenges of causal inference approaches of ego-centric network and health data, including issues such as reciprocal causation and attrition.

As such, the primary aim of this event is to bring together leading experts and researchers who are interested in personal networks and health to discuss current research and consult on best practices for approaching longitudinal analysis of egocentric network panel data. An additional goal is to promote collaboration among existing project teams and their research. Investigators from these teams will provide examples whereby findings from one project will have direct implications for the framing and analysis of others.
Symposium Format
To adjust for the remote conference format, we are offering the following structure:

Presentations:
We anticipate having 6-7 talks, each in the range of about 15-25 minutes, grouped into 3 panels, with time for a Q&A session. Abstracts should be no longer than 500 words and should describe the data set you will use.

Break Out Rooms:
For a limited number of participants, we will convene small breakout groups of up to 5 people to discuss topics of interest. Groups will have topics, goals and a coordinator who also will serve as a subject matter expert. We are asking for topic requests and are also issuing a call for coordinators. We expect some of the speakers will be coordinators. Even if you don’t present, it would be great if you would consider ‘hosting’ one of these sessions. The goal would be to group individuals interested in conversing on a particular topic, which could either be substantive, or perhaps about a specific data set or methodological approach/challenge, etc. Ideally, this would be a great time for early career people to introduce their research, network with others interested in similar topics, and/or receive feedback on a paper.

Keynote:
One keynote presentation, likely toward the end of the conference, will help us to wrap up some of the various challenges and a plan for the road ahead. 

Call for Abstracts and Participation (due July 1st, 2020)
If you have experience with longitudinal analysis of ego-centric network data, we invite you to present on your work, including the challenges you have faced using panel data. If you are interested in conversing on these topics, we invite you to host or join one of our Breakout Rooms. Finally, let us know if you’re simply interested in attending and would like to receive a Zoom invite to join the symposium. Click on the ‘Sign Up Here’ button below to submit an abstract or to express interest in attending. All forms are due on July 1st, 2020. 
 
Sign Up Here
In all, we hope this will be an opportunity for network and health researchers to convene, introduce, and learn more about one another’s work this summer. While nothing replaces the synergy of an annual conference, and especially traveling to a fun city to meet with new and old colleagues, we hope this symposium can serve as a bridge to keep discussions flowing and minds engaged in these topics until the next time we can meet in person. 
 
For any questions, please contact Dr. Stephanie Child at schild@berkeley.edu

We look forward to hearing from and seeing you in August. 

All the best from the UCNets team,
Stephanie Child,
Leora Lawton,
and Claude Fischer
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UCNets News -March 2020:

We are pleased to announce a new edition of UCNets News.

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Two-Day Conference and Workshop on Social Networks, June 14-15

[Updated June 13, 2019]

Our two-day conference and workshop held at UC Berkeley, June 14-15, on the new UC Berkeley Social Networks Study (UCNets), was a smashing success

The first day was a conference with presentations followed by a discussion, with ample time for networking. The second day consists of a detailed explanation to the UCNets data structure and documentation, followed by hands-on exercises in statistical methodologies to exploit the data.  The program can be viewed below.
 
If you have any questions, please contact Dr. Leora Lawton, UCNets director, llawton@berkeley.edu.
 
SCHEDULE OF EVENTS
Thursday, June 14
Conference with speakers presenting results of studies using Wave 1 Data
Introduction
Claude Fischer and Leora Lawton, UC Berkeley
Cohort-dependent health outcomes of personal networks
Miranda Lubbers, Autonomous University of Barcelona; and Başak Bilecen, University of Groningen &
Harvard University
Religious attendance, substance use, and network satisfaction: differences across age groups
Tuba Dagdas, University of Alabama-Birmingham
Racial and political diversity within personal networks: The promise and peril of embracing
difference in a politically polarized age
Mark Pachucki and Anthony Paik, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
Lunch & Networking
Migrant Health Outcomes and Social Support Networks
Leslie Cofie, University of Texas, Galveston Medical Branch
Migration and social support: a comparative study of immigrants’ and natives’ support networks
Başak Bilecen and Raffaele Vacca, University of Groningen & Harvard University; University of Florida
Discussant: Barry Wellman, University of Toronto
Friday June 15
Workshop on Understanding and Using the Data
• Data Structure
• Documentation issues
• Creating aggregate variables from the names file
• Statistical Methodologies (to be determined).
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Wave 1 data now on NACDA/ICPSR

The data and documentation are now available from the  National Archive of Computerized Data on Aging (NACDA), located within ICPSR, funded by the National Institute on Aging.  The persistent URL is http://dx.doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36975.v1 .

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Wave 2 Newsletter – January 2018

The January 2018 Newsletter to our panelists is now available.

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Wave 1 questionnaire, codebook and data now available.

 The final questionnaire for Wave 1, the codebook and documentation are available on the UCNets website. Data can be downloaded from NACDA.  You can find the data (and related descriptions) at:

http://www.icpsr.umich.edu/icpsrweb/ICPSR/studies/36975

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Newsletter Summer 2016

The first newsletter of UCNets was issued in Summer 2016, with some fun tidbits on our early results.  Click on this link to download and read.

newsletter_20july2016

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Develop a Research Project

Research Opportunities

While the UCNets project has no open positions, there is a possibility that one may apply for NIH funding to take advantage of the panel.  One way is to analyze existing data. Another is to re-interview panelists in a specialized sub-survey and then link these data to the main data, therefore being able to keep the additional questions very limited.  In both cases, one can apply to NIH (NIA is our funder) using one of many grant programs, such as an R03 (small research grant), pre-doctoral (F31), or post-doctoral fellowships (F32, K01, K99-R00).  While we cannot provide any guarantee of success, or mentorship support for the research project itself, you may get assistance with the grant application from Dr. Leora Lawton, Director.

Questions regarding opportunities can be directed to Dr Lawton, llawton@berkeley.edu.

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