Public Health Stream

First-Year Research Immersion Program at Binghamton University

The First-Year Research Immersion Public Health (FRI-PH) stream examines a variety of biopsychosocial factors affecting human physical health and mental health. The FRI-PH stream provides a great opportunity for students majoring in health sciences, psychology, sociology, economics, environmental studies, political science, math and related fields to join a multi-disciplinary team and study a health problem from a variety of angles. Each student research team designs a mixed-methods research study and collects physiological data from wearable technology (e.g., MUSE S, Fitbit), psychological data from survey questionnaires and interviews, or behavioral data from online experiments. Every student uses either a qualitative or quantitative data analysis technique to advance the team’s study objectives. As a stream, we aim to connect the dots between the biomedical model of health and the social-ecological model of health with attention to the economic, political, and commercial factors contributing to health inequities.