Reducing social isolation in young adults facing health disparities
Official title: Ameliorating Social Isolation in Populations Facing Health Disparities: Identifying Social Structural and Person-level Factors that Impede or Facilitate Health-related Social Behavior Change
Funded at Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill · NIH-11238486 · Data updated 2026-11-12
This project tries to use short health messages to encourage young adults from underserved groups to meet in person and feel less lonely.
Quick facts
| Grant type | R01 grant |
|---|---|
| Study type | NIH-funded research |
| Funding institution | Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill NIH-funded |
| Lab location | 1 site (Chapel Hill, United States) |
| Project start | May 9, 2023 |
| Project end | November 30, 2027 |
| Funding year | 2026 |
| Award (this year) | $628,946 |
| NIH project number | 5R01MD018492-04 |
| Project ID | NIH-11238486 on NIH RePORTER |
Who could benefit from this research
✓Could help
Ideal candidates are young adults (around age 18 and older) who feel socially isolated or lonely and who identify as Black/African American, Latino/Hispanic, or have lower subjective social status.
✕Less likely to help
People who are not young adults, who cannot participate in in-person interactions, or who have severe psychiatric or medical conditions that prevent safe participation may not benefit from this intervention.
What this research studies
You would join a 6-week program run by researchers who work with young adults from groups that often face worse health outcomes, including Black/African American and Latino/Hispanic participants and those with lower social status. Participants use an experimental, simulated social media platform and receive tailored messages aimed at prompting real-life social interactions. The study randomly assigns participants to different message approaches and tracks social behavior, loneliness, and related health measures repeatedly over the study period. The team combines methods from psychology, emotion science, and communication science to learn which messages help people connect and which do not.
Why it matters
Potential benefit: If successful, this work could help reduce loneliness and improve mental and physical health by increasing real-life social connections among at-risk young adults.
How similar studies have gone: Some prior work shows digital messages can nudge social behavior, but using a simulated social media platform to prompt in-person meetings among marginalized young adults is a relatively new approach.
Where this research is happening
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Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill
Chapel Hill, United States Active
Researchers
- Principal investigator: Fredrickson, Barbara Lee — Univ of North Carolina Chapel Hill
- Study coordinator: Fredrickson, Barbara Lee
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About this research
- This is an active NIH-funded research project — typically early-stage science, not a clinical trial accepting patient enrollment.
- Some NIH-funded labs run parallel clinical studies or seek volunteers for related work. To check, contact the principal investigator or institution listed above.
- For full project details, budget, and progress reports, visit the official NIH RePORTER page.