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NORC at the University Chicago
We navigate the complex social data landscape to derive actionable insights for personal and societal well-being.

NORC's Social Data Collaboratory (SDC) explores the intersection of social media, human behavior, and digital communication. Employing advanced techniques from applied statistics and computational linguistics, we navigate the evolving complexity of social data to provide actionable insights into public opinion and personal behavior. Our clients use those insights to make strategic planning, program, and policy decisions. 

Our team includes experts in public health, health communications, public policy, political science, economics, biostatistics, and data and computer science. In particular, we have extensive experience studying how health information is searched for, engaged with, and shared across traditional and emerging media platforms. Our rigorous data collection methods involve direct extraction from popular social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, YouTube, and TikTok and capture richer content than standard social listening tools. This combination of subject matter and methodological expertise offers our clients a deeper understanding of the topics that interest them. 

Our Experts

Our Projects

General Social Media Archive Marijuana Dashboard

A dashboard tool visualizing marijuana-related X (Twitter) trends to contextualize survey results on legalization opinions.

Funder:

National Science Foundation

Climate & Health Rapid Needs Assessment

Helping state, tribal, local, and territorial health departments prepare for climate-related challenges

Client:

CDC Foundation

RSV Vaccine Information Integrity & Social Media Influencers

A novel study of how social media influencers’ messaging affects followers’ RSV vaccine knowledge, attitudes, and uptake

Client:

National Science Foundation
Social Data Collaboratory Projects