Foundational Skills for Incorporating Biological Data into Social Work Research: Methodological Considerations for Inflammatory and Neuroimaging Data

Increasingly, social work researchers are becoming interested in incorporating biological data into their work. Such approaches allow social workers to identify novel pathways between the social environment and health, identify new targets for intervention and prevention strategies, and advance their ability to advocate for policy level changes using direct observational data. Additionally, as other fields have expanded into incorporating biological data into their work, multidisciplinary teams are increasingly requiring that social workers are incorporating biological findings to support their work even when not conducting it directly or are being called on to evaluate such work as a part of the peer-review process. Despite the growing need for foundational training in incorporating biological data into social work research, few social work scholars receive such training. This workshop aims to provide social work researchers with introductory skills to get started in incorporating biological data into their work.

Presenters will discuss the incorporation of two complimentary types of biological data into social work research: 1) inflammatory data and 2) neuroimaging data. Incorporation of inflammatory data will include a brief description of what inflammation is and how it is typically measured, theoretical positions that support studies, considerations for how to include inflammatory variables in statistical models, and issues in covariate selection. We will also briefly discuss ongoing subjects of debate in the field, such as exclusion of participants with very high inflammation and how that affects representation in the field. We will then work through a brief example using publicly available, nationally representative data from the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey.

The incorporation of neuroimaging data will begin with a foundational discussion on trauma-informed neuroimaging protocols, emphasizing the ethical and procedural considerations necessary when working with trauma-exposed populations. This will include strategies for minimizing participant distress, obtaining informed consent, and adapting standard protocols to accommodate the unique vulnerabilities of clinical and research samples. Presenters will then provide a practical overview of establishing a neuroimaging protocol, including compatible software platforms (e.g., FSL, SPM, FreeSurfer), hardware considerations, and standardizing acquisition parameters to ensure data quality and reproducibility. Attendees will also be introduced to the basic steps of data preprocessing and first- and second-level analyses.

Presenters will conclude with an integrative discussion on how neuroimaging data can be combined with peripheral inflammatory biomarkers to construct a more comprehensive understanding of interactions in the brain and body. During a ninety-minute session, the presenters will address each of the topics above in a prepared statement, pulling examples from their own work while sharing computer code and workflows to give audience members a concrete starting point. Presenters will reserve the last twenty minutes for audience questions and discussion.