Director's Voice Blog
15 Years of Recognizing Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Excellence at NIH
Since 2006, the OBSSR annually hosts an event to celebrate Dr. Matilda White Riley’s influence and contributions to the social and behavioral sciences. In its 15th year, the NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors will be held virtually on Friday, June 3, 2022, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET. This half-day event features a keynote address from the 2022 Distinguished Lecturer, Dr. David R. Williams, and highlights innovative research from five Early-Stage Investigator (ESI) Honorees, who were selected out of more than 250 submissions to our ESI paper competition. I hope you will join us in learning from and celebrating the accomplishments of these excellent scholars. Register today: https://www.scgcorp.com/mwrhonors2022/
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Research supported by the NINDS, NICHD, and others has identified neurons in the brain that influence competitive behavior and are involved in shaping social behavior of groups in a mouse model. Social interactions in people, as well as in other animals often happen in large groups, and these group interactions are important in sociology, ecology, psychology, and economics. However, the exact brain processes that are responsible for the complex dynamic behavior of social groups is not well understood, partly due to much of neuroscience research being focused on the behaviors of pairs of individuals interacting in isolation. In contrast, the current study investigated the behavior of large groups of mice during competitive group interactions.
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Social relationships are driven by factors like status and alliances and in the context of primates which thrive in large complex social groups. The large computational demands of living in large, complex social groups has been hypothesized to be a crucial factor driving the evolution of the primate brain size. However, whether and how the diverse components of primates’ natural social lives relate to brain structure remain largely unexplored., these factors may be linked to primate brain size over time. In a recent study funded by the NIMH, NIA, NSF, and others sought to understand the relationship between primate neuroanatomy and social factors in free-ranging rhesus macaques.
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Recently published research supported by the NIMH, NICHD, and others examined the impact of socioeconomic factors on pharmacotherapy treatment outcomes among adults with major depressive disorder (MDD). The research suggests that individuals who are socioeconomically disadvantaged (e.g., no college degree, unemployed, low income) demonstrate worse mental health outcomes than persons with higher socioeconomic status.
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Register: Dr. David R. Williams and ESI Honorees on June 3
15th NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors
Friday, June 3, 2022
1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. ET (virtual event)
Register and view the agenda and speaker biographies: https://www.scgcorp.com/mwrhonors2022
2022 NIH Matilda White Riley Distinguished Lecturer: David R. Williams, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Florence & Laura Norman Professor of Public Health
Chair, Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences,
Harvard Chan School of Public Health
Professor of African and African American Studies,
Harvard University
Presenting: The Virus of Racism: Understanding its Threats, Mobilizing Defenses
2022 NIH Matilda White Riley ESI Honorees and Presentations: Noli Brazil, Ph.D., University of California, Davis
The multidimensional clustering of health and its ecological risk factors
Keita Christophe, Ph.D., McGill University
Shift-&-Persist and discrimination predicting depression across the life course: An accelerated longitudinal design using MIDUS I-III
Patricia Homan, Ph.D., Florida State University
Structural intersectionality as a new direction for health disparities research
John W. Jackson, Sc.D., Johns Hopkins University
Meaningful causal decompositions in health equity research
Alina I. Palimaru, Ph.D., RAND Corporation
Mental health, family functioning, and sleep in cultural context among American Indian/Alaska Native urban youth: A mixed methods analysis
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Health Communication Research RFI (May 27) and upcoming Workshop (May 16)
The NIH Common Fund is hosting a public workshop to bring together key representatives from multiple sectors with an interest in and that are influenced by health and science communication research to identify research opportunities and gaps that, if addressed, would lead to more effective communication towards promoting healthy behavior. Register for the workshop here to hear perspectives from health communication research, media and technology sectors, and community representatives on May 16, 2022, from 1-4 p.m. EDT. For more information about the workshop, please go to: https://commonfund.nih.gov/healthcommresearch.
The NIH is looking for information to help develop planning activities to inform a potential Common Fund research program to support the development of novel approaches to address health and science communication in a changing sociocultural landscape. To learn more, please see the RFI posted here. Responses are voluntary, and should be submitted electronically on the submission website. Responses are requested by 11:59:59 p.m. ET on Friday, May 27, 2022. To ensure consideration, responses must be received by the May 27th deadline.
NIH Scientific Workforce Diversity Seminar Series: How Does Diversity Impact Science?
NIH Scientific Workforce Diversity Seminar Series:
How Does Diversity Impact Science?
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
1:00 p.m. ET
Join the NIH Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity (COSWD) Office for the final Scientific Workforce Diversity Seminar Series (SWDSS) event of the 2021-2022 season, "How Does Diversity Impact Science?".
Dr. Marie A. Bernard, the NIH COSWD, will moderate a discussion on the impact of workforce diversity on creativity and innovation in science. Panelists will share their perspectives on the benefits of scientific workforce diversity and highlight effective methods for measuring its impact, as well as areas for future research.
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NIH Director's Lecture: Damien Fair, Ph.D., on June 1
The Future of Non-invasive Functional Imaging in the Era of Big Data
Wednesday, June 1, 2022
3:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. ET
Speaker:
Damien Fair, Ph.D.
Professor, Institute of Child Development
Professor, Department of Pediatrics
Redleaf Endowed Director, Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain
University of Minnesota
Summary:
The Fair laboratory focuses on mechanisms and principles that underlie the developing brain. The majority of this work uses functional MRI and resting state functional connectivity MRI to assess typical and atypical populations. Dr. Fair is the co-director of the new Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain.
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SBE COVID Coordinating Center Website
The Social, Behavioral, and Economic COVID Coordinating Center (SBE CCC), led by ICPSR, provides a nexus for communication on COVID-19 related research, streamlining information-sharing across the behavioral and social science community, multiple NIH award recipients, and the public. It promotes collaborative work across a multidisciplinary research community, each with different missions, cultures, and ethos. In addition, the project provides teaching materials, data, and opportunities to apply for pilot studies on the impacts of COVID-19 among minority populations.
SBE CCC works with members of the SBE COVID Consortium, a group of NIH-funded teams investigating the social, behavioral, and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The SBE CCC website is now live. The website includes news and announcements, webinars and podcasts, and featured publications, all on topics related to SBE COVID research.
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Release of PATH Study Data Tables and Figures
The Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study is a nationally representative, longitudinal cohort study of tobacco use and how it affects the health of people in the United States. A collaboration between the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the PATH Study was launched in 2011 and the first wave of data collection started in 2013. It is one of the first large tobacco research efforts undertaken by the NIH and the FDA since Congress gave the FDA authority to regulate tobacco products in 2009. A series of cross-sectional and longitudinal tables and figures providing national estimates on tobacco use among youth (aged 12-17), young adults (aged 18-24), and adults (aged 25+) using data from Waves 1-5 (2013-2019) of the PATH Study are now are available for public use at PATH Study Data Tables and Figures: Wave 1-5 (2013-2019). These tables and figures provide estimates stratified by age, sex, race/ethnicity, and educational attainment to provide information on differences in tobacco use patterns across these important demographic subgroups. Learn more about the PATH Study at https://doi.org/10.3886/Series606.
RFI: Challenges and Opportunities in Health and Science Communication Research
Notice Number
NOT-RM-22-012
Key Dates
Release Date: April 26, 2022
Response Date: May 27, 2022
Purpose
The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to solicit input from the broad community regarding opportunities and challenges in health and science communication research.
View NOT-RM-22-012
RFI: Identification of a Set of Determinants for Whole Person Health
Notice Number
NOT-AT-22-019
Key Dates
Release Date: April 4, 2022
Response Date: June 17, 2022
Purpose
The purpose of this Request for Information (RFI) is to solicit public comment on defining a set of key determinants of health that addresses all the elements of the whole person health model, i.e., factors that can influence health either positively or negatively, and that encompass the full continuum of biological, behavioral, social, and environmental domains.
View NOT-AT-22-019
NOSI: IMPROVE Initiative: Implementation Science to Advance Maternal Health and Maternal Health Equity
Notice Number
NOT-OD-22-125
Key Dates
First Available Due Date: June 5, 2022
Expiration Date: July 17, 2022
Purpose
The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to stimulate dissemination and implementation research on innovative approaches built on evidence-based findings from foundational research on factors that contribute to maternal morbidity and mortality (MMM). This NOSI will support the development and implementation of strategies to inform integrated efforts involving policy and practice changes to improve preconception, pregnancy, perinatal, and postpartum care and advance maternal health and maternal health equity.
View NOT-OD-22-125
NOSI: Administrative Supplements for Research of Emerging and Existing Issues of COVID-19 Related to the Health and Well-Being of Women, Children and Individuals with Physical and/or Intellectual Disabilities
Notice Number
NOT-HD-22-003
Key Dates
First Available Due Date: April 29, 2022
Expiration Date: June 6, 2024
Purpose
The purpose of this funding opportunity is to provide an opportunity for funded researchers in these various fields to pursue supplemental funding to conduct research addressing these emerging and other existing COVID-related issues among pregnant and lactating people, infants, children and adolescents, and individuals with physical and/or intellectual disabilities. The goal of this NOSI is to not replace or to compete with the various COVID-related funding opportunities currently available. Instead, the purpose is to complement them by offering a funding opportunity for currently funded investigators to address key issues not currently covered by available COVID-related funding announcements among these populations.
View NOT-HD-22-003