SSRI Level 1 - Working Group

Multihands holding a plant.

SSRI Level 1 - Working Group

- Open -

Forming New Interdisciplinary Working Groups
Eligibility: PSU social and behavioral science faculty
Financial support range: $5,000 - $10,000
Deadline: Open until funding cap is reached

SSRI Level 1 Working Group funding is primarily designed to assist PSU social science faculty to form interdisciplinary research groups focusing on promising new interdisciplinary research topics who would organize colloquia, annual meetings, seminars or other convenings, and/or other research activities with the goal of developing competitive proposals for external funding.

Download Files :

Level 1 Working Group Proposal Form.doc (57.5 KB)
Level 1 Working Group Proposal Requirements.docx (19.25 KB)

Funding Contact :

Deborah Ehrenthal, Director of SSRI

Funded Projects

Project Team
Danielle Rhubart, Assistant Professor, Biobehavioral Health and Demography

Project Description

Rural America is home to higher rates of chronic conditions, poor self-rated health, and premature mortality. This spatial disparity has been linked to not only differences in access to health care, but also broader social and structural factors. Many questions remain unanswered that require attention from interdisciplinary teams of social science researchers who study the multilevel upstream factors that shape health. Penn State is perfectly positioned to be a vanguard of social science research on rural population health in the U.S. However, infrastructure is required to be able to fully support such efforts. Establishing a working group that facilitates and bolsters rural health research among the social sciences at Penn State is needed to coordinate the expertise of social science faculty who study the structural and social determinants of rural population health and ultimately support an extramurally funded Center for Rural Population Health at Penn State. The resulting infrastructure will provide the foundation for Penn State to serve as a hub for rural health research in the U.S.

Project Team
Justine Lindemann, Assistant Professor, Agricultural Economics, Sociology, and Education
Kristina Brant, Assistant Professor, Rural Sociology

Project Description

The continued criminalization and stigmatization of substance use isolates both people who use drugs and people in recovery from their broader communities. Communities facing high levels of substance use disorder and overdose amid the opioid crisis have fractured socially, with waning levels of trust and social cohesion. Abolitionism challenges the carceral logic that undergirds the country’s response to substance use; abolitionist approaches stand to support individual-level well-being while also promoting community-level healing. We propose a Level 1 grant to jumpstart an initiative at Penn State focused on the intersection of substance use, criminal justice involvement, agriculture, and food systems through an abolitionist lens. We will form a working group of interdisciplinary researchers and Extension professionals and host a symposium at PSU to cultivate research-Extension-community partnerships. Ultimately, we hope these partnerships will result in the development of innovative interventions that leverage food and agriculture to help people who use(d) drugs build recovery capital while also forging bridges between people who use(d) drugs and people who are justice involved and their broader communities. Research- Extension-community partnerships will provide a natural platform to apply for funding to implement and evaluate these interventions, ultimately informing scholarship, policy, and practice.