Latest Insights & Research

Monthly recap

Reddit, Twitter, and more: August in Suicide Research

For August, we went a little deeper in the whole “discourse space” on suicide. In addition to the scan of the published academic literature and Twitter trends, we also pulled some data from Reddit. While the Reddit analysis is more of a work in progress, it shows some interesting insights into the types of things […]

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Commentary

Reading (and Understanding) Scientific Articles

So you’ve started using PubTrawlr and you’re ready to dive deeper. You follow some links to the primary source, open them up….and it’s gobbledygook. Take a deep breath. This is a very common experience. Articles are not easy to read. There is likely to be a ton of jargon, and the writing can be unclear. Academics don’t […]

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Commentary

A useless history of the “Frameworks are Like Toothbrushes” quote

updated June 7, 2024 This morning, I was about to tweet the super insightful quote: Frameworks are like toothbrushes. Everyone has one, but nobody wants to use someone else’s. I got to thinking about the attribution. I first heard this quote from the great Soma Saha from WE in the World, but the roots had […]

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Commentary

The hidden (and not so hidden) messages your congressional representative is communicating.

There are plenty of good ideas about how to solve complex social problems. One of the major levers is policy. And the people responsible for brokering between local needs and large-scale, national implementation are the U.S. Congressional Representatives.

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Commentary

Never require answers to survey questions.

The headline is the thesis statement. Do not require answers to survey questions. That is, never make any answer to any question required for completing a survey. Never. Don’t do it. Here’s why. Humans should not be unwitting subjects in scientific experiments. Yet, our history is cluttered with examples of this. The Tuskeegee Experiment. The […]

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Commentary

Catching up with…Health Equity: July 2021

North American Summer is a strange time. We expect things to slow down. We expect fewer meetings because people will be on vacation. Because of that, I wrongly expected that research publications would also slow to a trickle. This was a completely wrong-headed belief. The last 31 days of research saw 391 articles across 177 […]

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Commentary

People aren’t getting the best stuff. And if we’re not getting the best stuff, then what are we doing here?

Jon talked with Don Webster of TecBridge last week about what PubTrawlr is, why PubTrawlr is, and all the things that we’re trying to accomplish. The transcript below has been lightly edited to cut out some patter, and account for the fact that Jon can’t talk too good-ish. You can listen to the whole interview […]

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Social media analysis

The Core Competencies: The Week in #impsci

Let’s go Socratic for a second. What does it mean to be an implementation practitioner? By that, if you were a person who was interested in getting good ideas into practice, what are the fundamental skill or first principles you need to adopt? The Center for Implementation has the answer. When I was going over […]

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PubTrawlr News

Coming Soon –> TecBridge Radio

Jonathan was interviewed by Don Webster for TecBridge Radio early this week. The purpose was to talk about how to grow the Technology Industry in Eastern PA and what role PubTrawlr plays in that. We’ll post the link and a transcript when it goes live, but in the meanwhile, be sure to check out past […]

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Commentary

A Great Purge — July Retraction

Look at this graph! Wow. There’s a huge purge going on at the Journals of Cellular Biochemistry and Physiology. That’s over a hundred articles between them!

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Commentary

The dog days of COVID – July in Community Psychology

The dog days of summer can be a blessing to many who straddle the academic world. Here — finally — is the spaciousness to read, write, unwind, upwind, do all the things that we wanted to do if only we had the time! If only. It’s not just the volume of articles coming out. COVID-related […]

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Commentary

Implementation Science is not cross-disciplinary. The week in #impsci Twitter

What does recent Twitter say about implementation science? Well, one common thread was that Implementation Practice includes enabling relationship-building, developing a common language, defining roles, and dedicating resources. That was a pretty clear thread in the network plot below. What else can we say about the Twitter chatter on #impsci.

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