Research
Building up a research agenda after spending 25 years in clinical medicine and reference publishing was challenging, to say the least. Things weren’t made any easier by the fact that there was no designated research lab or similar and no colleague with an established research agenda to guide or mentor. Therefore, it took a couple of years to get the first research projects going. But persistence pays off, and, over 10+ years, Dr. Reuter built up a thriving research agenda and established a tradition of excellence in faculty-mentored research in his department and college. Overall, almost 30 undergraduate and graduate students presented posters at national and international conferences or were co-authors of peer-reviewed articles. Most of these students went on to earn advanced degrees, usually in the medical field and health professions.
Dr. Reuter’s first projects were collaborations with his oldest daughter. His first IRB protocol was Assessing Healthcare & Community Needs: A comparative study between the Volta Region (Ghana) and Bioko Island (Equatorial Guinea). For a variety of reasons, the research in Ghana never got started. However, the co-investigators collected data using surveys and interviews in Equatorial Guinea. They were the first to publish papers on the state of healthcare and mental health services in that country. Because the topics were of more local than global interest, they decided to publish in a peer-reviewed, open-access journal based in Nairobi, Kenya, called The Pan African Medical Journal. The first article (Healthcare in Equatorial Guinea, West Africa: Obstacles and Barriers to Care) has been cited 15 times so far and was mentioned in the 2018 Business Insider Singapore article “The 15 unhealthiest countries in the world”. The second article (Public health professionals’ perceptions of mental health services in Equatorial Guinea, Central-West Africa) has been cited six times so far.
The next IRB protocol, Anthropometric and Physiologic Differences in Men and Women, was designed to integrate research into Dr. Reuter's Anatomy & Physiology classes to give students the opportunity to participate in the project. Initially, the research focused on how the difference in the length of index finger (D2) and ring finger (D4) between men and women is accompanied by and linked to differences in other anatomical structures as well as other aspects of physical and mental well-being. Starting in 2016, the focus switched to joint hypermobility. In addition to presentations at conferences, four articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals. The article Prevalence of generalized joint hypermobility, musculoskeletal injuries, and chronic musculoskeletal pain among American university students, published by PeerJ in September 2019, has been cited 56 times already. According to Dimensions, a free research insights platform, the article is extremely highly cited and has received approximately 18 times more citations than average.
However, over time, the focus of Dr. Reuter's research shifted due to the restrictions on lab-based research mentioned above and his personal interests. Together with a group of undergraduate students, he started a project entitled Student Health Behavior and Academic Success in spring of 2018. The project's focal point changed during the COVID-19 pandemic to capture the impact of the pandemic and related restrictions on students' emotional and mental well-being. While data collection is still ongoing, Dr. Reuter has already published five articles in peer-reviewed journals with undergraduate and graduate students as co-authors. The article The Influence of Eating Habits on the Academic Performance of University Students, published in The Journal of American College Health in February 2020, has been cited 40 times.
There were also several smaller research projects in collaboration with students and other faculty that led to peer-reviewed papers and/or presentations at national and international conferences. More information can be found here and here.
The roots of Dr. Reuter's sex research go back more than ten years to a cross-cultural comparison of sexual behavior. Together with his daughter, Dr. Reuter investigated how sexual orientation and behavior differ between university-aged students in Madagascar and in the United States. An article based on the data collected (Comparing the awareness of and beliefs in sexually transmitted infections among university students in Madagascar and the United States of America) was published in the open-access, online journal PeerJ in February 2018. It was one of the top five most-viewed articles in the areas of Global Health and Women’s Health on PeerJ in 2018.
Discussing the topic with his students, Dr. Reuter started to think that he should look more into the sexual behavior of his students, what role peer pressure, drugs, and alcohol play, how many students experience sexual harassment, how they respond, and so on. He called the project “Why do students have sex?” as a catchy title for an anonymous online survey increases the chance of students participating in the survey. Data collection started in early 2016 and continued through the end of 2022. This allowed Dr. Reuter to capture the transition of our student population from Millennials (born before 1997) to Generation Z (born in 1997 or later). Over seven years, more than 3,000 responses to the survey were submitted, making the data set one of the most intriguing collected anywhere.
Click here for peer-reviewed articles and posters and workshop presentations.
Dr. Reuter’s first projects were collaborations with his oldest daughter. His first IRB protocol was Assessing Healthcare & Community Needs: A comparative study between the Volta Region (Ghana) and Bioko Island (Equatorial Guinea). For a variety of reasons, the research in Ghana never got started. However, the co-investigators collected data using surveys and interviews in Equatorial Guinea. They were the first to publish papers on the state of healthcare and mental health services in that country. Because the topics were of more local than global interest, they decided to publish in a peer-reviewed, open-access journal based in Nairobi, Kenya, called The Pan African Medical Journal. The first article (Healthcare in Equatorial Guinea, West Africa: Obstacles and Barriers to Care) has been cited 15 times so far and was mentioned in the 2018 Business Insider Singapore article “The 15 unhealthiest countries in the world”. The second article (Public health professionals’ perceptions of mental health services in Equatorial Guinea, Central-West Africa) has been cited six times so far.
The next IRB protocol, Anthropometric and Physiologic Differences in Men and Women, was designed to integrate research into Dr. Reuter's Anatomy & Physiology classes to give students the opportunity to participate in the project. Initially, the research focused on how the difference in the length of index finger (D2) and ring finger (D4) between men and women is accompanied by and linked to differences in other anatomical structures as well as other aspects of physical and mental well-being. Starting in 2016, the focus switched to joint hypermobility. In addition to presentations at conferences, four articles have been published in peer-reviewed journals. The article Prevalence of generalized joint hypermobility, musculoskeletal injuries, and chronic musculoskeletal pain among American university students, published by PeerJ in September 2019, has been cited 56 times already. According to Dimensions, a free research insights platform, the article is extremely highly cited and has received approximately 18 times more citations than average.
However, over time, the focus of Dr. Reuter's research shifted due to the restrictions on lab-based research mentioned above and his personal interests. Together with a group of undergraduate students, he started a project entitled Student Health Behavior and Academic Success in spring of 2018. The project's focal point changed during the COVID-19 pandemic to capture the impact of the pandemic and related restrictions on students' emotional and mental well-being. While data collection is still ongoing, Dr. Reuter has already published five articles in peer-reviewed journals with undergraduate and graduate students as co-authors. The article The Influence of Eating Habits on the Academic Performance of University Students, published in The Journal of American College Health in February 2020, has been cited 40 times.
There were also several smaller research projects in collaboration with students and other faculty that led to peer-reviewed papers and/or presentations at national and international conferences. More information can be found here and here.
The roots of Dr. Reuter's sex research go back more than ten years to a cross-cultural comparison of sexual behavior. Together with his daughter, Dr. Reuter investigated how sexual orientation and behavior differ between university-aged students in Madagascar and in the United States. An article based on the data collected (Comparing the awareness of and beliefs in sexually transmitted infections among university students in Madagascar and the United States of America) was published in the open-access, online journal PeerJ in February 2018. It was one of the top five most-viewed articles in the areas of Global Health and Women’s Health on PeerJ in 2018.
Discussing the topic with his students, Dr. Reuter started to think that he should look more into the sexual behavior of his students, what role peer pressure, drugs, and alcohol play, how many students experience sexual harassment, how they respond, and so on. He called the project “Why do students have sex?” as a catchy title for an anonymous online survey increases the chance of students participating in the survey. Data collection started in early 2016 and continued through the end of 2022. This allowed Dr. Reuter to capture the transition of our student population from Millennials (born before 1997) to Generation Z (born in 1997 or later). Over seven years, more than 3,000 responses to the survey were submitted, making the data set one of the most intriguing collected anywhere.
Click here for peer-reviewed articles and posters and workshop presentations.
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