Dr. Troy Payne, Justice faculty, and Dr. Donna Aguiniga, School of Social Work faculty, have been awarded one of two College of Health (COH) grants for interdisciplinary research. Their research is titled “Space, place, and home: Mapping the social environment of Anchorage homeless populations.” This is a pilot study to develop data collection and analysis methodology that includes place and geography in semi-structured interviews with homeless youth (18-24 years old) in Anchorage. This approach will also allow researchers to study where, when, and with whom various events and perceptions occur.The project is in partnership with Covenant House Alaska.
Drs. Payne and Aguiniga will be adapting methodology used by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania to study the routines of violence-involved youth. Dr. Payne saw Dr. Doug Wiebe of U Penn make a presentation on this methodology at the 2014 Environmental Criminology and Crime Analysis (ECCA) Symposium in Kerkrade, The Netherlands, and realized the possibility of utilizing this approach to study homeless youth in Anchorage.
Two projects were selected by COH for funding. Both project teams will present their study design, implementation, and progress report at a COH-wide event in May 2015, complete their study by December 2015, and submit their study findings for publication and/or submit a proposal for external funding by May 2016.
