Journal Article

Diversity, equity, and inclusivity in observational ambulatory assessment: Recommendations from two decades of Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) research

Evora, Selena, Macbeth, Alessandra, Polsinelli, Angelina J., Tidwell, Colin A., Slatcher, Richard B., Kaplan, Deanna M., Robbins, Megan L., Rentscher, Kelly E., Chung, Joanne M., Alisic, Eva, Demiray, Burcu, Tejeda-Padron, Alma B., Resnikoff, Annie W., Minor, Kyle S., Noga, Rebecca N., Nugent, Nicole R., Gajewski-Nemes, Julia A., Mascaro, Jennifer S., Bruni, Michelle, Mangelsdorf, Shaminka N., Mehl, Matthias R.

2024

Overview

Ambient audio sampling methods such as the Electronically Activated Recorder (EAR) have become increasingly prominent in clinical and social sciences research. These methods record snippets of naturalistically assessed audio from participants’ daily lives, enabling novel observational research about the daily social interactions, identities, environments, behaviors, and speech of populations of interest. In practice, these scientific opportunities are equaled by methodological challenges: researchers’ own cultural backgrounds and identities can easily and unknowingly permeate the collection, coding, analysis, and interpretation of social data from daily life. Ambient audio sampling poses unique and significant challenges to cultural humility, diversity, equity, and inclusivity (DEI) in scientific research that require systematized attention. Motivated by this observation, an international consortium of 21 researchers who have used ambient audio sampling methodologies created a workgroup with the aim of improving upon existing published guidelines. We pooled formally and informally documented challenges pertaining to DEI in ambient audio sampling from our collective experience on 40+ studies (most of which used the EAR app) in clinical and healthy populations ranging from children to older adults. This article presents our resultant recommendations and argues for the incorporation of community-engaged research methods in observational ambulatory assessment designs looking forward. We provide concrete recommendations across each stage typical of an ambient audio sampling study (recruiting and enrolling participants, developing coding systems, training coders, handling multi-linguistic participants, data analysis and interpretation, and dissemination of results) as well as guiding questions that can be used to adapt these recommendations to project-specific constraints and needs.

• Publisher: Springer US,Springer Nature B.V
• Subject: Activities of daily living / Adult / Adults / Ambulatory assessment / Behavior / Behavioral Science and Psychology / Clinical research / Cognitive Psychology / Collaboration / Community research / Cultural differences / Cultural Diversity / Cultural heritage / Cultural identity / Data analysis / Dissemination / Diversity equity & inclusion / Everyday life / Humans / Identity / Language / Methodological problems / Monitoring, Ambulatory - instrumentation / Monitoring, Ambulatory - methods / Multiculturalism & pluralism / Observational studies / Older children / Older people / Original Manuscript / Privacy / Psychology / Recruitment / Research Design / Research methodology / Sampling / Self concept / Social behavior / Social factors / Social interaction / Social interactions / Social research / Social sciences / Speech / Teams