In the U.S., adolescence marks a period characterized by an increase in the prominence of peers and a heightened motivation to avoid social risks. Adolescence is also a time when there is an increase in the capacity to help peers, family, and others via prosocial behaviors, even when it may involve social risks, such as speaking out against popular opinions, norms, or authority. Understanding the relationship between social risk perceptions and prosocial tendencies during adolescence is of interest to researchers. Since adolescents are often socially risk averse, of particular interest is how this relationship changes in early-to-mid adolescence and how it varies by individual. Recently published research supported by NICHD, NIDA, NSF, and others, examined:
(1) whether adolescents showed more prosocial tendencies during years when they were more or less tolerant of social risks
(2) whether the yearly link between prosocial tendencies and social risk tolerance changed across early- to mid-adolescence
(3) whether the yearly link between prosocial tendencies and social risk tolerance varied according to individual differences in sensation seeking and empathy.
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It is well-established in the literature that sexual and gender minorities are at an elevated risk of suicidal ideation, suicidal attempts, psychiatric disorders, and substance use-related challenges. These elevated risks are even more pronounced for those sexual and gender minorities who are also affiliated with cultural, linguistic, or ethnic minority groups. More specifically, prior research indicates Asian American sexual minorities suffer poor mental health outcomes at higher rates than their heterosexual counterparts in the same community. In a recent study funded by NIA, NIMHD, and others, researchers sought to gain insight into the lived experience of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) Asian American constituents through the eyes of the service providers and organizations who are most familiar with their experiences, to identify risk factors as well as protective influences that impact mental health.
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Prior research has shown that married spouses’ morbidity and mortality are reliability lower than those who are unmarried. However, marriage itself is not necessarily protective with couples in distressed marriages having no better or even worse outcomes than their unmarried counterparts. Dyadic stress theories and prior research suggest that couples' negative communication patterns threaten immune and emotional health, leaving partners vulnerable to illness. Spouses' relationship perceptions can also color how they see and react to marital discussions. A recent study funded by NIA, NCI, NIDCR, NCATS, and Ohio State University, sought to identify pathways linking marriage distress to poor health by examining how self-reported typical communication patterns changed discussion-based behavioral effects on spouses' blister wound healing, emotions, and discussion evaluations.
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Save the Date: NIH Matilda White Riley Honors
The 16th NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors will be held on Monday, May 15, 2023, from 1:30 to 5:00 p.m. ET. Each year, NIH honors the research trajectory and continuing influence of Dr. Matilda White Riley in the behavioral and social sciences across and beyond the NIH. Initiated as an annual distinguished scholar lecture, OBSSR expanded the event in 2016 to recognize emerging scientists with a competition for peer-reviewed articles by Early Stage Investigators (ESIs). Registration and event information is forthcoming. Visit the OBSSR website for information about past NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors.
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Application Deadline Approaching: Summer Institute on Randomized Behavioral Clinical Trials
The 23rd annual Summer Institute on Randomized Behavioral Clinical Trials will be held from July 12 – 22, 2023 at the Bolger Hotel and Conference Center in Potomac, Maryland. The Institute is sponsored by OBSSR and the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI).
The Summer Institute provides an advanced course in planning, designing, and conducting high-impact randomized controlled trials of health-related behavioral interventions. It emphasizes programmatic research and prepares fellows to lead or collaborate on systematic efforts to develop and improve health-related behavioral interventions and on rigorous, high-impact behavioral trials. The Institute’s long-term goal is to build an outstanding scientific workforce that will conduct clinical trials that can change practice guidelines, health care policies, and third-party coverage for health-related behavioral interventions, and that can help to expand the role of evidence-based behavioral interventions in clinical and preventive services.
The application deadline has been extended to: Friday, February 24, 2023.
Please address questions about eligibility to apply for the Summer Institute or about the program to Kenneth Freedland, PhD, Program Director, at [email protected].
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Register for SOBC Webinar on 2/24
Presentation: Mechanistic Targets for Intervening with Racial Disparities: A Focus on Race-Related Stressors, Health Literacy, and Physician/Patient Interactions
Presented by: Dr. Lisa A. Cooper, Dr. Dean Schillinger, and Dr. Gilbert C. Gee
Join the Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) for a webinar on Mechanistic Targets for Intervening with Racial Disparities on February 24th, 2:00-4:30 PM ET. Discover innovative ways to address the root causes of health disparities and gain a deeper understanding of the mechanisms of race-related stressors, health literacy, and physician/patient interactions. This webinar will consist of three 40-minute talks followed by a 20-minute discussion panel, providing a comprehensive overview of the field's current state and addressing racial health disparities.
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[Register] Public Release Webinar: Using Population Descriptors in Genomics Research
Join the National Academies for a public release webinar on Friday, March 17, 2023, from 11:30 am to 12:30 pm ET to learn more about a new National Academies’ report from the committee on Use of Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry as Population Descriptors in Genomics Research. The report reviews and assesses existing methodologies, benefits, and challenges of using population descriptors in genetics and genomics research and suggests new best practices for their use. During the webinar, members of the committee will discuss the key findings and recommendations from the report and take questions from the audience.
Speakers at this event will include:
- Aravinda Chakravarti (co-chair), New York University
- Charmaine Royal (co-chair), Duke University
- Michael Bamshad, University of Washington and Seattle Children’s Hospital
- Ann Morning, New York University
- John Novembre, University of Chicago
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[Register] In conversation: The need for the Human Behaviour-Change Project Part 1
Join the Human-Behaviour Change Project (HBCP) for a webinar on Thursday, March 23, 2023, from 11:00 am to 12:00 pm ET. Challenges facing the field of behavioural science, such as the difficulties of synthesising increasing volumes of evidence, will be discussed by Dr. Christine Hunter (Acting OBSSR Director) and Professor Mike Kelly (University of Cambridge). HBCP is creating an online ‘Knowledge System’ that uses Artificial Intelligence, in particular Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, to extract information from intervention evaluation reports to answer key questions about the evidence. It is a collaboration between behavioural scientists, computer scientists and systems architects.
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Call for Fellowship Applications in Behavioral Science Research related to NIDDK's Mission
Leadership and Education Advancement Program for Diverse Scholars (LEAP) Call for Fellowship Applications
Established for individuals who have attained their doctorate degree in a medical, social, or behavioral science who shows promise in research related to the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) mission.
The Focus for LEAP
One-on-One Focused Mentorship by successful area-specific professionals
$2,000 for Career Development and Research
Grant Writing Training
Leadership Development
LEAP Goals
Develop and implement a career development plan
Draft a research proposal to submit to NIH or another funding agency
Identify an appropriate funding mechanism
Establish skills and a strategy for obtaining a leadership position
Application deadline: April 3, 2023
For additional application information check out: LEAP: https://www.apa.org/pi/mfp/leap
Facebook Live Information Session: https://www.facebook.com/APAMinorityFellowshipProgram/videos/2338251889663645/
More information regarding all Minority Fellowship Programs can be found here.
Apply
Resources Available: PAR 23-066 TA Webinar
In FY2023, OBSSR coordinated with other ICOs to publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), PAR-23-066 that published on December 14, 2022 and is a re-issue of PAR-22-115 (published FY2022) and supports a network of research projects to develop and test interventions at the community or community organization level that aim to prevent firearm and related violence, injury and mortality. PAR-23-066 expires on March 18, 2023. A technical assistance webinar for PAR-23-066 was held on Thursday, January 26 at 1:00 p.m. ET. The webinar provided an overview of PAR-23-066 and provided an opportunity to address participant questions. The 508 compliant webinar slides and FAQs will be available until the March 18, 2023, FOA expiration date.
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The Future of Work: Behavioral and Social Science-Informed Considerations for a Hybrid Work Environment
This report, developed by a team of OBSSR staff, provides behavioral and social science-informed considerations for developing and maintaining virtual and hybrid work environments. The goal of this report was to explore key areas that impact workplace development and effectiveness and well-being in virtual and hybrid work environments, including: 1) ensuring diversity, equity, inclusion, access, and belonging, 2) recruiting and retaining an excellent workforce, 3) creating a psychologically healthy work environment, 4) increasing digital literacy, 5) cultivating leadership, 6) enhancing motivation and engagement, 7) minimizing disruptions and distractions, 8) fostering collaboration and innovation, and 9) building and maintaining effective teams. The report also recommends key considerations for future research directions to meet the needs of today’s modern and diverse workforce.
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Implementation of the NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing
January 25, 2023, marked the implementation date for the NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing (DMS Policy). As such, for all applicable research, researchers will be required to submit a plan for outlining how scientific data and accompanying metadata will be managed and shared. NIH will continue to work with the community to ensure the policy achieves our shared goal of accelerating biomedical research discovery. Please check out resources, such as archived webinars and sample Data Management and Sharing Plans, available at https://sharing.nih.gov. Dr. Lawrence Tabak has issued an NIH Director’s Statement. Dr. Tabak’s statement can be found here. If you have any questions, please contact [email protected] or [email protected].
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NIH BSSR Festival Recordings Available
Captioned recordings and 508 compliant materials from the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival, held December 8-9, 2022, are now available. The festival, organized by OBSSR and the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee (BSSR-CC), highlights exciting research results, emerging areas, and innovations in health related BSSR. This NIH-wide event enables efficient leveraging of NIH resources and expertise. The BSSR-CC members contribute diverse and comprehensive perspectives on the NIH BSSR portfolio, thus facilitating the selection of an outstanding array of research results that are highlighted at the festival.
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Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study Update
The Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study announces the availability of new biomarker restricted-use data files (BRUFs) from Waves 4 and 5. The files include data from the Wave 1 Biomarker Core (W1BC) and the Wave 4 Biomarker Core (W4BC), a cohort of participants who were youth in Wave 4 and provided biospecimens at Waves 4 and 5.
The following urine assay data files are now available for the W1BC: Hydoxy Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAH) at Wave 4, Tobacco Specific Nitrosamines (TSNA) at Wave 5, and Oxidative Stress (F2PG2a) with urine weights at Wave 5. The following urine assay data files are now available for the W4BC: Enzymatic Urinary Creatinine (CREAU), Metals, Urinary Nicotine Metabolites (UNICM), Urine weights for the W4BC data, and the youth Nicotine Exposure Questionnaire (NEQ) file. Please visit https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36840 for more information. In addition, the PATH Study Restricted-Use Master Linkage File has been updated to reflect the new BRUFs.
Questions about the collection, content, weighting, documentation, or structure of PATH Study data may be submitted to [email protected] (not to be used for questions about statistical analysis or analytic guidance).
Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Accelerating Behavioral and Social Science through Ontology Development and Use (U01)
Notice Number
NOT-OD-23-089
Key Dates
Release Date: February 14, 2023
Estimated Publication Date of FOA: April 30, 2023
First Estimated Application Due Date: September 30, 2023
Earliest Estimated Award Date: May 1, 2024
Earliest Estimated Start Date: June 1, 2024
Purpose
OBSSR, with other NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs), intends to promote a new initiative by publishing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to accelerate behavioral and social science through ontology development and use. Applications will be encouraged to develop new or expand existing ontologies for behavioral or social science research (BSSR). Applicants will be expected to form multi-disciplinary teams including subject matter experts in one or more BSSR fields, as well as experts in semantic knowledge structures. Proposals will be expected to focus on health-relevant terminology related to constructs, measures, and/or interventions. Funded projects and investigator teams will participate in a collaborative research network. This Notice is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and responsive projects. The FOAs are expected to be published in Spring 2023 with expected application due dates in Fall 2023.
Research projects supported should focus on behavioral or social science ontology expansion or development, dissemination, and use. The projects must include multidisciplinary teams of subject-matter experts in behavioral and/or social science as well as ontology related informatics. Each project should identify one or more use cases and elucidate the justification of the need and potential demand for the proposed ontological resource or tool. Examples of use cases include, but are not limited to, those listed in Ontologies in the Behavioral Sciences: Accelerating Research and the Spread of Knowledge. Projects should advance research capabilities and efficiencies and address problems not easily solved without improvement in semantic knowledge structures (e.g., controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and ontologies).
View NOT-OD-23-089
Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Accelerating Behavioral and Social Science through Ontology Development and Use (U24)
Notice Number
NOT-OD-23-090
Key Dates
Release Date: February 14, 2023
Estimated Publication Date of FOA: April 30, 2023
First Estimated Application Due Date: September 30, 2023
Earliest Estimated Award Date: May 1, 2024
Earliest Estimated Start Date: June 1, 2024
Purpose
OBSSR, with other NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs), intends to publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) soliciting applications to establish a Dissemination and Coordination Center (DCC) for a U24 Research Network on Behavioral and Social Science Ontology Development. DCC teams must include subject matter experts in one or more fields of behavioral or social science, ontology-related informatics and computational approaches, and Team Science or the Science of Science.
The DCC supported through this initiative will have four primary responsibilities: 1) Coordinating and providing logistical support to facilitate collaboration and cross-U01 project learning; 2) Providing ontology-related technical, computational, and informatics expertise and support; 3) Facilitating dissemination of resources and training to support ontology expansion, development, and use; and 4) Providing active outreach and coordination with relevant stakeholders to increase understanding of and demand for BSSR ontology-related tools and resources.
View NOT-OD-23-090
Career Enhancement Award to Advance Research on Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention (K18 Independent Clinical Trial Required)
FOA Number
PAR-23-107
Key Dates
Open Date (Earliest Submission Date): February 17, 2023
Expiration Date: March 18, 2023
Purpose
This NIH Research Career Enhancement Award (K18) program invites applications from experienced investigators seeking to redirect or expand their research programs through the acquisition of new skills and knowledge in the area of firearm mortality and injury prevention research, which is beyond and complementary to their current areas of expertise. The program will support research training and career development experiences and a small-scale research project that will provide experienced investigators with the scientific competencies required to conduct research relevant to firearm morality and injury prevention research.
View PAR-23-107
Career Enhancement Award to Advance Research on Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention (K18 Independent Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
FOA Number
PAR-23-108
Key Dates
Open Date (Earliest Submission Date): February 17, 2023 Expiration Date: March 18, 2023
Purpose
This NIH Research Career Enhancement Award (K18) program invites applications from experienced investigators seeking to redirect or expand their research programs through the acquisition of new skills and knowledge in the area of firearm mortality and injury prevention research, which is beyond and complementary to their current areas of expertise. The program will support research training and career development experiences and a small-scale research project that will provide experienced investigators with the scientific competencies required to conduct research relevant to firearm morality and injury prevention research.
View PAR-23-108
Request for Information (RFI): Future Directions in Violence Against Women Research
Notice Number
NOT-NR-23-008
Key Dates
Release Date: February 10, 2023
Expiration Date: March 31, 2023
Purpose
This Request for Information (RFI) is intended to gather public input on priority scientific directions in violence against women (VAW) research. This includes cisgender, transgender, and gender-diverse persons who identify as a woman or girl, as well as other individuals assigned female at birth but who may not identify as a woman or girl. Specifically, the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH), the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), the Office of Disease Prevention (ODP), and the Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office (SGMRO) are soliciting comments from the public on scientific gaps and research opportunities to address longstanding and emergent factors that perpetuate VAW. This request solicits input on a broad range of topics to inform research directions to better understand and identify opportunities to address underlying causes that influence women’s exposure to violence and to identify approaches to address the health impacts and sequelae of VAW.
In this request, VAW is considered broadly to include but not be limited to: domestic or intimate partner violence (IPV), sexual assault and rape, dating violence and abuse, peer violence, physical and mental abuse, sexual coercion, stalking, homicide, and elder mistreatment.
View NOT-NR-23-008
Request for Information (RFI): Re-envisioning U.S. Postdoctoral Research Training and Career Progression within the Biomedical Research Enterprise
Notice Number
NOT-OD-23-084
Key Dates
Release Date: February 14, 2023
Expiration Date: April 14, 2023
Purpose
NIH seeks information from extramural research community members regarding the current state of postdoctoral research training and career progression within the biomedical research enterprise. NIH is particularly interested in understanding the perspective and experience of recent and current postdoctoral trainees, postdoctoral office leaders, as well as graduate students considering becoming postdoctoral trainees within the academic sector. This RFI will assist NIH in hearing the voices of postdoctoral trainees along with others impacted by this unique and skilled training position, and in exploring ways to address some of the fundamental challenges faced by the postdoctoral trainee community. This information will inform the development of recommendations by the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD ), an advisory group that provides advice on matters pertinent to NIH mission responsibilities in the conduct and support of biomedical research, medical science, and biomedical communications.
View NOT-OD-23-084
Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) for Administrative Supplements: Harmonization and Joint Analysis of Human Brain Single-Cell Datasets
Notice Number
NOT-NS-23-042
Key Dates
First Available Due Date: May 1, 2023
Expiration Date: May 2, 2023
Purpose
The NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research (BP) is soliciting Administrative Supplement applications that support the joint analysis of existing disease-focused and Brain Research Through Advancing Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative-generated “control” datasets of single-cell/nucleus data from human brain.
View NOT-NS-23-042
Addressing the Impact of Structural Racism and Discrimination on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R01 - Clinical Trial Optional)
FOA Number
PAR-23-112
Key Dates
Open Date (Earliest Submission Date): February 24, 2023
Expiration Date: January 8, 2026
Purpose
This initiative will support intervention research that addresses structural racism and discrimination (SRD) in order to improve minority health or reduce health disparities.
View PAR-23-112
