Marta A.: Hello! This is Marta Arnold, NARIC’s Spanish-language Reviewer. In today’s episode, I speak with Marta Garcia, NARIC’s Bilingual Information and Media Specialist, about NARIC’s Research In Focus series. We discuss where the research articles come from that are used for the series; research topics covered by Research In Focus, including topics that may be meaningful to the Spanish-speaking disability and research communities; and where listeners may find the series. I truly enjoyed participating in this discussion and I hope you enjoy listening to it.
Marta A.: What is Research In Focus?
Marta G.: NARIC’s Research In Focus series is a weekly publication that summarizes the latest NIDILRR-funded research. The series is designed to be reader friendly and provides an overview of the study that highlights important findings and shares the implications and areas of future research. The articles in this series are hand selected from the diverse collection at NARIC and the aim of the series is to cover broad and interesting research on many areas of disability, including types of interventions, assistive technology, and other topics. Research In Focus also covers a wide range of ages - from early childhood to aging with and into disabilities.
Marta A.: Where do the research articles come from that are used for Research In Focus?
Marta G.: The research highlighted in the Research In Focus series comes from documents in the NARIC collection that discuss research and development activities funded by the National Institute of Disability, Independent Living, and Rehabilitation Research (NIDILRR). There are usually over 300 active projects funded by NIDILRR in any given year and these projects publish articles, reports, guides, and manuals that NARIC collects. As these documents come into the collection, we look for topics of interest. For example, in the last year or so, we have been looking at articles that look at the impact that COVID-19 has had on the disability community.
Marta A.: Has Research In Focus covered topics that are meaningful to the Spanish-speaking community?
Marta G: Topics covered by the Research In Focus series include transportation, employment, education, healthcare, COVID-19 and the disability community, inclusion, participation, independent living, and more! Topics also include interventions, demographics, and assistive technology.
Marta A.: Where can listeners find Research In Focus and is it available in Spanish?
Marta G: Every article could have meaning for our Spanish-speaking listeners. Having said that, several Research In Focus (in Spanish) articles have touched on issues that affect the Spanish-speaking disability community. For example, The COVID-19 Pandemic Has Taken a Toll on Latinx Families with Children with IDD, but There are Some Positives as Well discusses a NIDILRR-funded study that sought to explore the effects of the pandemic on Latinx caregivers’ perceived general health, mental health, and wellbeing and what factors such as social an financial supports were related to their wellbeing. The article, Spanish-Speaking Immigrants Share Experiences Adjusting to Traumatic Brain Injury, discusses a NIDILRR-funded study that asked Spanish-speakers with traumatic brain injuries to describe their quality of life and self-concept after their injury, what factors helped or hindered their quality of life, and how their injury impacted their sense of self.
Marta A.: Where can listeners find Research In Focus and is it available in Spanish?
Marta G: Listeners can find Research In Focus on NARIC’s website, naric.com. And, yes, Research In Focus is available in Spanish and can be found on the Spanish side of our website, naric.com/es/rif_es.
Marta A.: There are terms in Research In Focus that are very specific to research. Where can listeners learn more about these terms?
Marta G: Our listeners can learn more about these terms in our Research In Brief series in our Spotlight blog. The purpose of this series is to help our readers and listeners understand the Research In Focus articles and other scientific studies as well. We look at several things before writing a post in the Research In Brief series, including what terms are appearing frequently in our Research In Focus articles. For example, we may highlight a qualitative study or a quantitative study, so we would write a Research In Brief post about these types of studies. We also want to provide our listeners with the tools to identify reliable sources, so some posts may discuss what makes a study or resource reliable, some red flags that they should look out for, and so on. We created the Research In Brief series to empower our readers to feel like they can discern the reliability of health information that they come across while doing research online.
Marta A.: ¿ Where can listeners find Research In Brief series?
Marta G: The Research in Brief series is available in English and Spanish on our Spotlight blog naricspotlight.wordpress.com/. And the blog articles also get indexed in our website, naric.com. So, if our listeners search our website, you will find brief summaries of those blog posts. Our listeners can learn about dissecting a journal article by visiting our Ask a Librarian series, where we have a frequently asked question about this topic.
We look forward to bringing you more Research In Focus articles and Research In Brief blog posts. I really enjoyed discussing these series!
Marta A.: This is Marta Arnold, and I would like to thank you for listening to this episode of NARIC’s Spotlight Podcast. I would like to thank Marta Garcia for a great discussion on NARIC’s Research In Focus series and I hope our listeners learned more about this great series. I also hope that this episode has inspired listeners to delve into the wealth of NIDILRR-funded research within the Research In Focus series.