On June 10, Congress creates the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) to identify, coordinate, and promote behavioral and social science research projects at the NIH and beyond. Its founding demonstrates growing public acceptance that behavioral and social science factors greatly impact public health.

The OBSSR officially opens its doors within the Office of the NIH Director. The Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee (BSSR-CC) forms the same year to advise the Director of the OBSSR and foster communication and coordination with NIH staff and external partners in the field of behavioral and social sciences research.

The OBSSR issues a FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement in 1997, and again in 1998, for the development of short-term educational workshops for social, behavioral, and biomedical researchers in the early stages of their careers. Promoting interdisciplinary approaches, these workshops aim to help participants develop cross-disciplinary collaborations.

The OBSSR issues FOAs enacted in 1998 and 2003 to test whether theoretical models and practical interventions are effective for creating positive, long-term behavior changes. In particular, researchers study poor diet and exercise, alcohol abuse, and tobacco use, the leading causes of poor health and premature death.

The OBSSR leads a FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement to establish the Centers for Mind/Body Interactions and Health to encourage and advance interdisciplinary projects—each designed to focus on relationships between the mind and body in disease and health. Subsequent FOAs in this field are released in 2003, 2005, 2006, and 2007.

The OBSSR and the NIH advance intervention research to improve human health. The OBSSR issues a FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement soliciting behavioral intervention research focused on youth violence prevention.

The OBSSR has been the backbone of behavioral and social sciences research at the NIH.

Peter Kaufmann becomes Acting Director of the OBSSR after a decade as the Chief of NHLBI National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute ’s Behavioral Medicine Branch. Dr. Kaufmann encourages OBSSR staff to use their diverse subject backgrounds and abilities, enabling the team to concentrate on and strengthen aspects of behavioral and social sciences research at the NIH.

In collaboration with the NHLBI National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute , the OBSSR holds its first annual Summer Institute on Randomized Behavioral Clinical Trials. The institute trains researchers and health professionals on how to conduct studies that divide participants into groups by chance, allowing researchers to review different treatments or interventions fairly.

The NRC National Research Council , in collaboration with the OBSSR, publishes “New Horizons in Health: An Integrative Approach.” This consensus report details ways in which the NIH can use behavioral and social sciences research to address contemporary health needs and outcomes on national and global scales.

The OBSSR issues an FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement focused on developing and enhancing the quality and power of data in health-related behavioral and social sciences. Researchers are asked to explore how to improve methodologies in research design, measurement, and data synthesis. This FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement is reissued in 2005, 2006, 2008, 2016, and 2017.

The OBSSR encourages investigation of formal schooling’s impact on overall health by issuing an FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement . In 2014, the OBSSR holds a related meeting called “Education and Health: New Frontiers.” The meeting minutes are included in the 2015 NAS National Academy of Sciences report “Exploring Opportunities for Collaboration Between Health and Education to Improve Population Health: Workshop Summary.” The OBSSR issues related FOAs “Education and Health: New Frontiers” in 2016 and 2018.

The OBSSR releases FOAs to stimulate research in health literacy—the capacity of individuals to understand and act on information to improve or sustain their health. These FOAs examine how health literacy connects to health disparities and how technology can bridge the knowledge gap. These FOAs are reissued in 2006, 2010, and 2013 and inform a 2011 IOM Institute of Medicine report.

Community-based participatory research allows people with great stakes in a community’s health to work alongside scientific researchers to improve health and address related disparities. The OBSSR issues a FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement in 2004, and again in 2008, to stimulate joint involvement of researchers and communities in conducting health research.

We get a lot of applause for all the breakthroughs in biomedical research ... we get some applause for the breakthroughs in psychosocial, epidemiology, and public health research ... If the one takes place without the other, it’s the sound of one hand clapping ... Imagine how much more applause we would get if both hands were clapping, on the one side the biomedical sciences, and on the other side collaborating with the behavioral and social sciences.

David Abrams becomes OBSSR’s director after a long tenure as a professor of community health, psychiatry, and human behavior at Brown University Medical School. Under his leadership, the OBSSR publishes a strategic prospectus. Dr. Abrams prioritizes systems science—studying the world as a series of systems interacting with one another—and transdisciplinary team science. His efforts involve focusing on major chronic diseases that are not easily categorized into biomedical or psychosocial realms but rather result from interactions between them.

Dr. Abrams also encourages community-building efforts and provides spaces for staff to generate ideas about how to enhance the mission of the behavioral and social sciences within the NIH community. He establishes a “kitchen cabinet,” holding weekly meetings with behavioral and social sciences programming staff across the NIH to garner advice. The group builds a sense of camaraderie, discussing challenges the OBSSR faces and ways to work together more effectively. 

The OBSSR creates an annual distinguished scholar lecture to honor Dr. Matilda White Riley, who pioneered the integration of behavioral and social sciences research into biomedicine. An academic sociologist, Dr. Riley also developed and directed grant programs on behavioral and social sciences research at the NIA National Institute on Aging . The event expands in 2016 to highlight early-career scientists with the Early State Investigator Paper Awards.

In collaboration with the OBSSR, the IOM Institute of Medicine publishes “Genes, Behavior, and the Social Environment: Moving Beyond the Nature-Nurture Debate.” This report reviews work related to interactions between genes and environment, encouraging the examination of multiple public health factors at once. In 2008, the OBSSR issues FOAs aimed at understanding the combined effect of biological and social factors on health.

The OBSSR releases its strategic prospectus (second strategic plan), which provides recommendations within the field and for public health progress as a whole. The prospectus contains four priorities: (1) “next-generation” basic, or life, science; (2) research between and across different fields; (3) systems science, or science understanding life as a series of related systems; and (4) problem-focused research for population impact.

Rural, low-income, and certain racial and ethnic populations generally experience poorer health than the overall U.S. population. To stimulate research on the causes of and solutions to health and disability disparities in the United States, the OBSSR issues an FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement focused on this topic. This FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement is reissued in 2010 and 2013.

The OBSSR [is] ...  a uniter of NIH Institutes around behavioral and social science issues, having a small budget ... to nudge things along, to seed ideas, and having a voice.

 Christine Bachrach becomes OBSSR’s acting director following a long tenure at the Demographic and Behavioral Science Branch of the NICHD National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Center for Population Research. Under Dr. Bachrach’s leadership, the OBSSR organizes Institute directors, program leaders, and working groups to create OppNet NIH Basic Behavioral and Social Science Opportunity Network , a fruitful interdisciplinary funding initiative launched in 2009.

In collaboration with the CDC Centers for Disease Control and Prevention , the OBSSR organizes its first annual institute on systems science and health. The institute’s purpose is to provide students with an overview of systems science methods and training. Students represent a variety of disciplines and education levels—from predoctoral to full professor.

There are still health disparities among various groups, racial, ethnic, geographic ... figuring out how environment, broadly defined to include the social and behavioral environment, as well as the physical and chemical environments, influences gene expression, and health and disease outcomes ... those issues are still on the table for the NIH and for the OBSSR.

Deborah Olster becomes OBSSR’s acting director after serving as Deputy Director of the OBSSR and in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation. As acting director, Dr. Olster spearheads the interdisciplinary research activities and funding opportunities included in the NIH Roadmap.

What I’ve come to appreciate is that the determinants of health are much broader than we’ve ever recognized. The OBSSR has really developed that message.

Robert Kaplan becomes OBSSR’s director after serving as a professor in the University of California, Los Angeles School of Public Health and School of Medicine. During his tenure, the OBSSR invests in the development of the mHealth Collaboratory, an initiative that employs mobile technologies to improve public health and prepares for next-generation technologies and research methods.

Under Dr. Kaplan’s leadership, the OBSSR also spearheads a training program to help medical schools reform their curricula to bolster behavioral and social science content. The OBSSR also holds many short courses to train early-career researchers and doctors in mHealth, dissemination and implementation methods, systems science, and more.

The OBSSR issues an FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement in 2011, and again in 2014, to stimulate research related to positive behavioral interventions and health outcomes for patients with coexisting chronic health conditions and diseases. In particular, they support research in primary care treatment for patients with three or more chronic health conditions.

In collaboration with the OBSSR, the NRC National Research Council and the IOM Institute of Medicine publish the consensus report “U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health.” Conducted at OBSSR’s request, the study compares life expectancy and health in the United States with those measures in 16 other wealthy democratic countries. It finds that U.S. life expectancy and health do not compare well and require a societal commitment to improve.

I cannot imagine a more exciting time than now to be a behavioral and social science researcher. Advances in technology, open data, and big data analytics are providing new and temporally dense information in large and varied samples. Transdisciplinary efforts by diverse disciplines, including genetics, neuroscience, computer science, and engineering, are reinvigorating the behavioral and social sciences with novel approaches and methodologies and are cross-pollinating behavioral and social sciences research approaches into their disciplines as well.

William T. Riley becomes OBSSR’s acting director, and then director, after serving for more than a decade within the NIMH National Institute of Mental Health , the NHLBI National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute , and the NCI National Cancer Institute . He specializes in the application of digital technologies, engineering, and computer science to the behavioral and social sciences in order to improve public health research and outcomes.

Under Dr. Riley’s leadership, the OBSSR expands its training initiatives. In particular, the K18 award provides funding opportunities for established scientists to gain experience in disciplines beyond their primary research fields. The OBSSR releases its third and current strategic plan, which expands on scientific priorities by providing a list of functions central to OBSSR’s mission and advancement.

Ever-changing technology plays a part in health management. The OBSSR issues an FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement to help researchers effectively evaluate mobile and wireless (mHealth) technologies. The goal is to identify sustainable applications and spaces that can facilitate mHealth research across various settings, studies, health conditions, and populations. The OBSSR releases a related FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement in 2017.

The OBSSR leads FOAs focused on population health interventions to stimulate research on the ways different factors relate to each other and lead to health outcomes. These FOAs study how individual, provider, community, and environmental factors can link together to improve public health and treatment efficacy.

At the first annual NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival, the OBSSR and the BSSR-CC showcase noteworthy health research strides, innovations, and areas of interest. The event features presentations by NIH and external scientists hailing from diverse fields. The festival also serves to solidify research directions and coordination among various institutes and centers.

The OBSSR issues FOAs to develop a cooperative agreement network and Research Coordinating Center to support the Intensive Longitudinal Health Behaviors Initiative. The goal is to learn the influences of key health behaviors from data collection and analysis, assisted with real-time data from smartphones and new technologies, to suggest personalized strategies for disease reduction and prevention.

Research is ineffective if the behavioral and social sciences workforce is ill-equipped to conduct it. To that end, the OBSSR releases a FOA Funding Opportunity Announcement to support predoctoral training programs in analytics, fostering the next generation of behavioral and social sciences researchers.

Behavioral and social factors often play a pivotal role in the prevention or mitigation of risk for diseases as well as in the management of chronic diseases and the promotion of well-being. The systematic integration of the behavioral and social sciences into the broad research mission at NIH, from fundamental discovery to implementation science, is crucial to achieving the goal of advancing human health.

Dr. Christine Hunter is the Acting Director for the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) at the National Institutes of Health. Dr. Hunter obtained her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from The University of Memphis and completed her psychology internship at Wilford Hall Medical Center. She completed a Postdoctoral Fellowship in Clinical Health Psychology and attained Board Certification in Clinical Health Psychology by the American Board of Professional Psychology. Dr. Hunter is a Captain in the U.S. Public Health Service.

Events in the last few years have demonstrated the importance of integrating behavioral and social sciences research into the broader biomedical enterprise. OBSSR is uniquely poised through our collaborations across the NIH Institutes and Centers to identify opportunities to not only support BSSR but also identify where it can provide additional and important synergy. Integration of behavioral and social sciences can result in bringing new perspectives to areas of science not yet explored. The role of OBSSR in this process is one that I have found exciting and rewarding during my time at OBSSR.

Dr. Wendy B. Smith is the Associate Director for the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) at the National Institutes of Health and served as interim Acting Director from June to July 2023. Dr. Smith joined OBSSR in 2013 and has held several senior leadership positions including Senior Scientific Advisor for Research Development and Outreach, Acting Deputy Director, interim Acting Director, and her current role as Associate Director since 2016. She joined OBSSR from the Office of Science Policy, Office of the NIH Director where she served as the Director for Clinical and Translational Research Partnerships. Prior to her roles within the Office of the NIH Director, she served as the inaugural Deputy Director of the National Cancer Institute’s Office of Cancer Complementary and Alternative Medicine, where she also created and directed the Research Development and Support Program. Dr. Smith is a founding member of the NIH Pain Consortium, and her publications include research on pain memory, psychophysics of pain perception, psychological aspects of pain, complementary and alternative medicine, and research methodologies.