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Faculty Notes Recent news and accomplishments
Both researchers are drawn to explore questions around disparities facing understudied and underserved groups —Nakash looks at racial and ethnic disparities, while Capistrant tends to focus on the LGBTQ population.
Mining Data
Assistant Professor Benjamin Capistrant, Sc.D., looks at data sets coming out of a host of national surveys to help answer an array of questions. This year, he teamed up with SSW colleague Ora Nakash, M.A., Ph.D., and professor and chair of the HBSE sequence, to coauthor a series of articles based on data analysis they hope will lead to even more research. Nakash, too, sees in epidemiological data great opportunities to increase understanding of the needs of people who historically have been marginalized. “Some of our work overlaps and we have similar interests,” said Nakash. Like Capistrant, she joined the faculty in July of 2018. Both researchers are drawn to explore questions around disparities facing understudied and underserved groups—Nakash looks at racial and ethnic disparities, while Capistrant
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tends to focus on the LGBTQ population. Much of Capistrant’s research drills down into national data in search of a nuanced picture of the needs, in particular, of LGBTQ older adults. “We don’t want to look at LGB adults as a monolith,” he noted. “Within the group there’s a lot of variation.” Already, much scholarly research has looked at the needs of LGBTQ youth in light of the increased risk for suicide that group experiences. “Indeed, that makes sense because that’s where the risks are the highest, but we find that there are additional sets of risk factors—or we don’t know very much about the risk factors—for older LGB adults,” said Capistrant. So far, Nakash said, an article looking at the suicide risks in older LGB adults has been accepted for publication, while an article looking at their risk for depression and another about opioid use are under review.
S M I T H COL L E G E SCHO O L FO R SO CIAL WO RK
Capistrant and Nakash are also analyzing data for a fourth submission, looking at substance use among LGB adults. Capistrant teaches research and research methods to master’s and doctoral students, and statistics and data science to Smith undergraduates. He noted that it’s only been since about 2013 that national surveys began asking questions about sexual orientation. Even so, in order to have
