Episode 25: Dr. Tasneem Khambaty
AAmy BarnesAug 6, 2022 at 4:43 pm23min
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00:04Dr. Ian Anson
Hello and welcome to Retrieving the Social Sciences, a production of the Center for Social Science Scholarship. I'm your host, Ian Anson, Associate Professor of Political Science here at UMBC. On today's show, as always, we'll be hearing from UMBC faculty, students, visiting speakers, and community partners about the social science research they've been performing in recent times. Qualitative, quantitative, applied, empirical, normative. On Retrieving the Social Sciences, we bring the best of UMBC's social science community to you.
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00:41Dr. Ian Anson
If you're like me, you probably don't enjoy going to the hospital. You know, while we should consider ourselves lucky to be surrounded by some of the best hospitals in the world here in Baltimore, there's usually nothing good happening when you find yourself spending a significant amount of time in one. Although, you know, I suppose there's one notable exception to that statement, and I should know something about it, because last year, I first met my baby daughter in the obstetrics wing of a nearby hospital. That visit was unforgettably positive. Although the food was nothing to write home about. When most Americans visit hospitals for reasons besides childbirth however, they have a wide variety of experiences and outcomes. Older Americans are especially likely to experience medical issues that require various levels of care, from in-home visits to hospitalization. Among them is diabetes, a chronic disease that is associated with a large number of issues related to mobility, cognition, and functional living for aging populations. We know that from a biological standpoint, diabetes poses a number of physical risks to Americans. But what can the social sciences tell us about the lived experiences of people with diabetes? That's one of the biggest questions that Dr. Tasneem Khambaty, Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology and Behavioral Medicine at UMBC, hopes to answer. Dr. Khambaty, who received a PhD in Clinical Health Psychology from Purdue University, has published a number of articles in recent years on a variety of topics at the intersection of public health and the social sciences. Whether it's depression and anxiety, diabetes, gum disease, or the interaction of these conditions and other health outcomes, Dr. Khambaty's research helps us understand how social forces contribute to the severity of the health issues experienced by individuals of different races, ages and life situations. Most recently, Dr. Khambaty has received a grant from the UMBC Center for Social Science Scholarship to examine how social forces shaped the impacts of diabetes on other health outcomes. The research draws on the HANDLS study, which stands for Healthy Aging in Neighborhoods of Diversity across the Life Span. It's a unique data source that reaches over 3000 black and white residents of Baltimore City using mobile research vehicles. In my recent interview with Dr. Khambaty we learned much more about the intersection of health and the social sciences, as well as the details of the HANDLS study. Let's listen it.
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03:14Dr. Ian Anson
Today, I have the distinct pleasure of welcoming to the program, Dr. Tasneem Khambaty. First of all, thank you so much for being here. I'm really excited to have you on the show.
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03:25Dr. Tasneem Khambaty
Oh, thank you so much for having me.
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03:27Dr. Ian Anson
Great. So I wanted to ask you just sort of a first question here about research in the social science. So you know, on this podcast, we talk to researchers all across the disciplines, you know, economics, sociology, political science, you name it. But Dr. Khambaty, your research in clinical health psychology is somewhat unique in that it sits at the intersection of the social sciences and medicine, which is a field that we don't really talk very much about on the podcast at all. So I wanted to ask you, first of all, what sort of got you interested in this intersection between medicine and the social sciences?
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04:01Dr. Tasneem Khambaty
Oh, such a great question. I've always been curious about the workings of the brain and mind ever since, you know, my adolescence. But growing up, most of the conversations around me, focused on the health of the body. And I thought, well, what about the health of the mind? Surely, the mind and body are not separate, but in fact, interlinked. I mean, we're connected, you know, physically. Uhm and so that got me going, and then the other driver of this interest was really immigrating to the US and becoming introduced to the field of clinical health psychology or behavioral medicine, which essentially integrates the scientific study of biological, psychological, behavioral, and social factors in health and disease.
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