Archived Content
The Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR) archives materials older than three years that are no longer updated. This content is available for historical purposes, and the information and links may have changed over time.
April 23, 2020
Director's Voice
How to Help People Do What They Need to Do to Prevent the Spread of COVID-19.
“You tell me what you need people to do, and I’ll tell you how to help them do it.” Although a simplification, this statement by social and behavioral scientists to our infectious disease colleagues illustrates the nature of our collaboration during an infectious disease outbreak like the current COVID-19 outbreak. Without this collaboration, we risk that people will not do what we are telling them to do. That’s because telling people what to do is often a necessary but seldom a sufficient condition for them to do it.
Research Spotlights
Findings from Recently Published Research
Controlling people’s movement altered the spread of COVID-19 in China
Worldwide, countries have enacted significant behavioral, clinical, and state interventions slow the COVID-19 epidemic. However, it remains unclear how interventions, such as restrictions on travel, affected COVID-19 spread in China. A global consortium of researchers supported by grants from the NIGMS, the Oxford Martin School, and the Republic of Ecuador conducted an epidemiological study to assess the impact of travel restrictions on the epidemic in China.
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New links between vaping, oral microbes, and infection
With the increased use of electronic cigarettes (e-cigarettes), understanding the potential health impacts of vaping has become a critical issue. Researchers supported by grants from the NIDCR, NCI, NIEHS, and New York University show that vaping changes the oral microbiome. Previous research has shown that changes in the oral microbiome due to environmental and host factors can contribute several health issues, including cavities, gum disease, halitosis, and medical conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and some cancers.
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Researchers identify a consciousness “switch” in the brain
Consciousness is the capacity to experience your own environment and internal states, however minimal mechanisms that are needed for consciousness are unclear. Researchers supported by grants from the NIMH, ORIP, the U.S.-Israel Binational Science Foundation, and the Wisconsin National Primate Research Center have discovered an area deep in the brain that is sensitive to consciousness levels. Theories of consciousness emphasize the importance of recurrent activity and interaction between neurons.
Go There Now
In the Know
Events and Announcements
COVID-19 Specific Survey Items Now Available on PhenX and the NIH Disaster Research Response (DR2) Platforms
Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, researchers with existing longitudinal cohorts and survey samples have been developing and fielding new survey items assessing various COVID-19 specific domains such as symptoms, knowledge and attitudes, adherence to various mitigation behaviors, social impacts, and economic impacts. Efforts to standardize or harmonize COVID-19 survey items, however, did not appear feasible given the urgency to field items as early as possible during the pandemic.
To minimize the proliferation of one-off survey items, encourage comparisons across samples, and facilitate data integration and collaboration, a NIH-wide working group co-led by the National Institute on Aging (NIA) and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) worked to make existing COVID-19 survey items and investigator contact information available in a survey item repository. Two NIH-supported survey item platforms have made this expanding list of survey items available as a resource for researchers interested in assessing COVID-19 specific domains.
Funding Opportunities Specific to COVID-19 and the Behavioral and Social Sciences
These FOAs are recently released NOSIs for Urgent Competitive Revisions and Administrative Supplements that encourage COVID-19 behavioral and social sciences research. Key areas of research encouraged by these NOSIs include various aspects of the Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and COVID-19 including risk communication, adherence to and transmission risks from various public health mitigation efforts, economic and social impacts from these mitigation efforts, downstream health and health care access effects as a result of these economic and social impacts, and interventions to ameliorate these downstream health impacts. In addition to a number of NIH Institute or Center (IC) NOSIs, OBSSR also has issued a NIH-wide NOSI to address common areas of interest across ICs and provide a mechanism for ICs to fund urgent competitive revisions and administrative supplements without publishing their own NOSI.
NIH Orchestrating International Strategy for COVID-19 Pandemic Research Response
NIH recently announced efforts underway to establish a public-private partnership to develop an international strategy for a coordinated research response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The planned Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) partnership will bring together many government health agencies and more than a dozen biopharmaceutical companies to prioritize vaccine and drug candidates in review and connect clinical trial networks to test new and repurposed compounds quickly and efficiently. Please read the NIH announcement to learn more about this important collaboration. NIH will keep the community apprised as these efforts develop.
NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors
SAVE THE DATE: Monday, June 8, 2020 — Virtual Meeting.
The 13th NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors will be held on Monday, June 8, and will be a virtual meeting. This year’s Distinguished Lecturer is Toni Antonucci, Ph.D., Elizabeth M. Douvan Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Senior Research Scientist, Institute for Social Research Life Course, at the University of Michigan. Dr. Antonucci will present on “Social Relations and Structural Lag: A Brave New Age.”
The 2020 NIH Matilda White Riley Early Stage Investigator Awardees and presentations include:
- Julia Chen-Sankey, Ph.D., Post-doctoral Fellow, NIH NIMHD.
Presentation Title: E-cigarette marketing and youth experimentation - Andrew Rothenberg, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy.
Presentation Title: Examining the internalizing pathway to substance use in 10 cultural groups around the world - Jaime C. Slaughter-Acey, Ph.D., M.P.H., Assistant Professor, Epidemiology and Community Health, University of Minnesota.
Presentation Title: Skin tone and prenatal care outcomes among African American women - Bradley P. Turnwald, Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Stanford University.
Presentation Title: Mind over genome: Learning one’s genetic risk for obesity changes physiology independent of actual genetic risk
Registration and agenda information will be provided soon.
Building a Strong Foundation: The Early Years of OBSSR (1995-2000)
As we celebrate 25 years of OBSSR, we have asked the former Directors to reflect on their time at OBSSR. This guest blog was authored by OBSSR’s first Director, Norman B. Anderson, Ph.D.
During the 25th anniversary year of OBSSR, it is my pleasure to reflect on my time as the first Director of OBSSR, from July 1995 to April 2000, having been appointed by former NIH Director Dr. Harold Varmus. In this role, I also held the title of NIH Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. Prior to joining NIH, I was a tenured associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center where my research focused on health disparities, especially the problem of hypertension in African Americans. I was also very active in the community of scholars interested in transdisciplinary research, especially the bio-psycho-socio-cultural model of health and illness. These prior professional experiences shaped my perspective on and approach to the work of OBSSR.
NIDDK Releases RFI for Strategic Planning Process
NIDDK issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking public input for the development of its strategic plan. This overarching, 5-year trans-NIDDK Strategic Plan will complement NIDDK’s disease-specific planning efforts. A critical component of this strategic planning process is input from the research and patient communities and others with an interest in research within the mission of NIDDK. The RFI will remain open through July 31, 2020. Please provide your input at: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/rfi/rfi.cfm?ID=106
NIDDK conducts and supports biomedical research and research training and disseminates science-based information on diabetes and other endocrine and metabolic diseases; digestive diseases, including liver, gastrointestinal, and other diseases; nutritional disorders; obesity; and kidney, urologic, and hematologic diseases. Updates on NIDDK's planning process will be available at: www.niddk.nih.gov/about-niddk/strategic-plans-reports/planning-process-for-niddk-strategic-plan
Your input is vital to ensuring that the NIDDK Strategic Plan presents innovative opportunities and strategies to advance research progress to improve the health and quality of life of the American people.
Request for Information: Challenges and Opportunities in Understanding Cellular Senescence and Senolytics
The NIH is considering the possibility of developing a Common Fund program to address the role of senescent cells in health and disease. In spite of the burgeoning efforts already in the field attempting to test therapies based on attacking senescent cells, it has become clear that many aspects of cell senescence research are currently in need of answers before the full potential of such therapies can be safely developed in humans. As part of the initial planning process, we are requesting input from the scientific community on the challenges in this field that can best be addressed through a concerted and coordinated effort. Specifically, we welcome your responses in the following domains:
- Methods, tools, or community resources needed to characterize the heterogeneity vs. universality of senescence features, in different cell types, both in vivo and in vitro.
- Methods, tools, or community resources needed to characterize cell senescence in both humans and animal models.
- Methods tools, or community resources that would be required to define biomarkers of cell senescence in multiple contexts.
- Characterizing the multiple drivers of cell senescence, both pathological and physiological (e.g., cross-talk between cell senescence and other hallmarks of aging).
- Characterizing the health consequences of senescent cell accumulation during aging and in response to challenges such as radiation or chemotherapy.
- Characterizing attributes of physiological senescence during normal development and wound healing and their similarities or differences compared to pathological senescence.
- Challenges in research on senolytics and senomorphs, including pharmacology and biological challenges.
- Best approaches to take advantage of senolytics and senomorphs, both of which represent a novel class of drugs that might play a role in combatting multiple diseases and conditions.
Responses to this RFI will be accepted through May 15, 2020. All comments will be anonymous and must be submitted via email to [email protected]. Please include the Notice number (NOT-RM-20-014) in the subject line.
OBSSR Director's Webinar: What We Are Learning from Talking to Scientists About Science Communication
On Tuesday, May 19, 2020 at 2 pm ET, John Besley, Ph.D., Ellis N. Brandt Professor of Public Relations at Michigan State University, will present a talk titled “What we are learning from talking to scientists about science communication.” In recent years, Dr. John Besley has shifted his research from the study of public opinion about science to trying to understand scientists' opinion about the public. As part of this work, he and his collaborators have advanced a framework for strategic science communication that emphasizes setting clear behavioral goals and then working backwards to identify communication objectives that have the potential of affecting desired behaviors, as well as tactics to help achieve the communication objectives. This perspective puts identifying and prioritizing specific communication objectives at the core of being an effective communicator. For this presentation Dr. Besley will share his thinking along with selected data from his surveys and interviews of scientists.
Director, Division of Neuroscience, Development and Aging, CSR
NIH's Center for Scientific Review (CSR) is seeking a Director for its Division of Neuroscience, Development and Aging (DNDA). If you are selected, you would report directly to the CSR Director and provide scientific leadership for the Division, which handles reviews of applications across a broad range of neuroscience, aging, and biological psychiatry. The Director of DNDA is a member of CSR's senior leadership, advises the Director of CSR and other NIH officials on implementing and improving review of the Division’s science, and represents CSR within NIH and to the external scientific community. You would lead approximately 50 Scientific Review Officers (SROs) and the review activities of 50 study sections and special emphasis panels in 5 Integrated Review Groups. You would provide vital leadership and management of the Division, supervising IRG Chiefs, overseeing recruitment, training, and mentoring, managing human resources issues, selecting and training reviewers and ensuring that peer review principles and practices are applied well and consistently. Applications must be received by 11:59 p.m. ET on May 2, 2020.
Federal Health Information Technology Research and Development Strategic Framework
The Federal Health Information Technology Research and Development Strategic Framework has been published. This strategic R&D Framework was developed to improve medical, functional, and public health outcomes through R&D in the use of data and IT for advanced health IT applications and improved detection of existing health concerns and discovery of emerging issues. It is expected that this Framework will help the United States capitalize on the full potential of health IT to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of health care and lengthen and improve the quality of American lives. This Framework will also help Federal agencies work across silos and prioritize areas for transformation by investing in tools and technologies that open new areas of discovery and better coordination of R&D activities. It does not define specific research agendas for individual Federal agencies; instead, agencies will continue to pursue priorities consistent with their missions, capabilities, authorities, and budgets, while maximizing planning, collaboration, and coordination with one another through the HITRD IWG to avoid duplicative efforts.
Funding Announcements
Recently Published FOAs
NOSI Regarding the Availability of Administrative Supplements and Urgent Competitive Revisions for Research on the 2019 Novel Coronavirus and the Behavioral and Social Sciences
Notice Number
NOT-OD-20-097
Key Dates
First Available Due Date: April 13, 2020
Expiration Date: April 1, 2021
Purpose
This Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) highlights the urgent need for social, behavioral, economic, health communication, and epidemiologic research relevant to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and COVID-19. This NOSI encourages urgent competitive supplements and administrative supplements to existing longitudinal studies that address key social and behavioral questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including adherence to and transmission mitigation from various containment and mitigation efforts; social, behavioral, and economic impacts from these containment and mitigation efforts; and downstream health impacts resulting from these social, behavioral, and economic impacts, including differences in risk and resiliency based on gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other social determinants of health.
NOSI: Competitive Revisions for Firearms Injury and Mortality Prevention Research
Notice Number
NOT-OD-20-089
Key Dates
First Available Due Date: May 15, 2020
Expiration Date: May 16, 2020
Purpose
This Notice solicits competitive revision applications to support the expansion of existing R01 and R21 programs well poised to expand their focus to include firearms research as described below. Revision applications can support a significant expansion of the scope and research protocol approved and funded for the “parent” award on which the revision application is based. Prospective investigators can consult the contact list below to ensure that projects will contribute considerably to achieving the goal of this Notice.
Nearly 40,000 people in the U.S. die from firearm-related deaths each year, primarily from suicide (60%) or homicide (37%), and many more have experienced non-fatal firearm injuries, both intentional and nonintentional. The Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the FY2020 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1865) included funding for the NIH to conduct research on firearm injury and mortality prevention and recommended that NIH take a comprehensive approach to studying the underlying causes and evidence-based methods of prevention of firearm injury, including crime prevention. Within the legislative mandates and limitations of NIH funding (NOT-OD-20-068, NOT-OD-20-066), the NIH, via this NOSI, encourages research to improve understanding of the determinants of firearm injury, the identification of those at risk of firearm injury (including both victims and perpetrators), the development and evaluation of innovative interventions to prevent firearm injury and mortality, and the examination of approaches to improve the implementation of existing, evidence-based interventions to prevent firearm injury and mortality.
Firearm Injury and Mortality Prevention Research (R61 Clinical Trial Optional)
FOA Number
PAR-20-143
Key Dates
Application Due Date: May 15, 2020
Expiration Date: May 16, 2020
Purpose
Nearly 40,000 people in the U.S. die from firearm-related deaths each year, primarily from suicide (60%) or homicide (37%), and many more have experienced non-fatal firearm injuries, both intentional and nonintentional. The Joint Explanatory Statement accompanying the FY2020 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1865) included funding for the NIH to conduct research on firearm injury and mortality prevention and recommended that NIH take a comprehensive approach to studying the underlying causes and evidence-based methods of prevention of firearm injury, including crime prevention. Within the legislative mandates and limitations of NIH funding (NOT-OD-20-068, NOT-OD-20-066), the NIH encourages research to improve understanding of the determinants of firearm injury, the identification of those at risk of firearm injury (including both victims and perpetrators), the development and evaluation of innovative interventions to prevent firearm injury and mortality, and the examination of approaches to improve the implementation of existing, evidence-based interventions to prevent firearm injury and mortality.
NOSI: Research to Improve the Interpretation of Patient-Reported Outcomes at the Individual Patient Level for Use in Clinical Practice
FOA Number
NOT-OD-20-079
Key Dates
First Available Due Date: June 5, 2020
Expiration Date: January 8, 2022
Purpose
A patient-reported outcome (PRO) is defined as any report of a person’s health status including symptoms, function and well-being, that is gathered directly from a patient, without interpretation of that report by a clinician, observer, or anyone else. PROs are critical for the support of patient-centered care, as they provide information from the patient’s perspective, and offer important information to improve patient-clinician communication, decision-making, and care delivery. PROs are increasingly being used by clinical stakeholders (e.g., providers, care delivery systems, payers and regulators) to characterize individual patients’ symptoms and functional status and the change in outcomes over time. Thus, PROs are becoming an important piece of information for clinical decision-making, including shared decision-making. The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to stimulate research that contributes to the evidence base for precise and accurate PRO score interpretation at the individual patient level for use in clinical practice.
Addressing Racial Disparities in Maternal Mortality and Morbidity (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
FOA Number
RFA-MD-20-008
Key Dates
Application Due Date: May 29, 2020
Expiration Date: May 30, 2020
Purpose
This initiative will support multidisciplinary research examining mechanisms underlying racial and ethnic disparities in maternal mortality and morbidity, testing the efficacy and/or effectiveness of multi-level interventions, and/or research strategies to optimally and sustainably deliver proven-effective prevention and treatment interventions to reduce these disparities.
Protocol Template for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
Resource for Communicating the Science, Methods, and Operations of a Clinical Trial
This Protocol Template for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research is a suggested format for clinical trials that are testing a behavioral or social intervention or experimental manipulation. The template can also be a useful tool for those trials funded by NIH Institutes or Centers that do not require stand-alone clinical protocols. Using the template to anticipate decision points and potential challenges before a study launches can help avoid delays down the road. Use of the protocol template is encouraged but not required.
Social and Behavioral Research eLearning Course
Good Clinical Practice in Social and Behavioral Research
Complete the free NIH Good Clinical Practice (GCP) Training through the Society of Behavioral Medicine. In September 2016, the NIH issued a Policy on Good Clinical Practice Training for NIH awardees involved in NIH-funded clinical trials. The principles of GCP help assure the safety, integrity, and quality of clinical trials. Certificates will be given upon completion of the training.
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