CHARLES RIVER ANALYTICS, INC. — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: 102

Description

DESCRIPTION provided by applicant The overarching aim of this proposal is to develop and verify a new and innovative software system that will assist researchers in more rigorously constructing social networks During the past two decades studies have increasingly employed social network analysis SNA to understand HIV and sexually transmitted infections STI transmission The mapping of andquot risk networks andquot in which individuals are connected by infection spreading ties has yielded especially valuable insight into the behavioral epidemiology of HIV and STI and has informed promising interventions designed for people at risk for or living with HIV However despite these advances and the burgeoning popularity of SNA based HIV STI research major methodological and technological challenges are hindering further progress in the field SNAandapos s ability to catalyze major epidemiologic advances relies on researchersandapos ability to construct valid representations of participantsandapos networks from behavioral data The standard protocol for constructing risk networks or identifying direct and indirect relationships among participants and their partners involves matching participantsandapos names and demographics with data provided about named partners This process of identifying and matching duplicate individuals in the network i e andquot entity resolutionandquot ER is often conducted through laborious manual cross referencing procedures These procedures are limited in their reproducibility and may lead to misspecification of network structure Further complicating valid network construction is that ER criteria are not formalized specified differently across studies n various settings and populations and rarely if ever explained in the published literature Semi automated tools that combine powerful automated ER processes with capacities for customization and qualitative input have the potential to dramatically improve the speed and accuracy of risk network construction Current tools for ER in health research tend to focus on a static subset of available ER techniques e g similarity in demographics phonetic based matching techniques without incorporating state of the art approaches e g machine learning The proposed software Semi automated Processing of Interconnected Dyads using Entity Resolution SPIDER will provide users with a system that enables efficient semi automated network construction using a library of robust statistically rigorous ER algorithms rich desktop based annotation tools and secure web based technologies The customizability of SPIDER will allow for multi disciplinary utility in studies using varying designs and will include innovative features that specifically respond to emerging methodological trends in HIV STI research The overarching goal of this project is to improve the efficiency and quality of network construction used in research thereby improving the evidence base for network based interventions that mitigate the spread of HIV PUBLIC HEALTH RELEVANCE The overarching aim of this Phase I proposal is to develop and verify a software system that will assist researchers interventionists and practitioners in more rigorously constructing social networks The software Semi Automated Processing of Interconnected Dyads Using Entity Resolution SPIDER will provide users with a system that enables efficient semi automated risk network construction using a library of robust advanced entity resolution algorithms rich desktop based annotation tools secure web based technologies and a host of innovative features that specifically respond to emerging methodological trends in HIV STI research The overarching goal of this project is to improve the efficiency and quality of network methods used in research and practice and to thereby improve the evidence base for network based interventions that mitigate the spread of HIV