Director’s Voice
Celebrating 25 Years of the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research!
James M. Anderson, M.D., Ph.D., Director of the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives, provides a perspective of OBSSR from NIH leadership.
On July 1, 1995, the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) was formed with Norman Anderson as its first Director. That year, the Digital Video Disc (DVD) was introduced. JavaScript was developed and web browsers like Netscape were making the Internet accessible to the general public. Amazon sold its first book and eBay was launched. In the medical sciences, Hemophilus influenzae became the first free living organism to have its complete genome sequenced. The first protease inhibitor was approved by the FDA for combination treatment of HIV/AIDS. Clearly, much has changed in medicine, technology, and the world in the 25 years since OBSSR was formed.
The behavioral and social sciences have also changed substantially over the past 25 years; however, some of the research published in 1995 is still highly relevant and influential today.
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In a recent publication, researchers funded by NIA, NIH Blueprint for Neuroscience Research, NSF, and others, cast doubt on the usefulness of task functional MRI (fMRI) for between subject effect predictions and biomarker development. Recently, there has been an increasing interest in identifying brain biomarkers of disease risk for personalized medicine. One limitation to identifying meaningful biomarkers is measurement reliability, such that a measure provides consistent results under similar circumstances.
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What is the connection between your childhood neighborhood and, gene regulation, and later health outcomes? A study funded by the NICHD, NIEHS, and others, examined the different ways DNA methylation may be influenced by one's childhood social environment. Previous studies have shown that children raised in socioeconomically disadvantaged neighborhoods have worse health as adults, when compared with their peers from more affluent communities. Environmentally induced alterations to the epigenome, such as differential DNA methylation, have been proposed as one potential mechanism linking early-life environments to later-life health outcomes.
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Within the United States, approximately 5.7 million people are living with dementia. In a recent study funded by the NIA, researchers sought to determine the behavioral correlates that may help to delay the onset of this devastating disease. Currently, there are no effective pharmacotherapies that modify the course of dementia; however, epidemiologic studies and clinical trials suggest that primary prevention, typically through increasing healthy behaviors, may be able to delay the onset of the disease. The goal of the current study was to comprehensively assess the specific healthy lifestyle factors that are connected to the onset or delay of Alzheimer’s dementia. The researchers used two prospective longitudinal studies: the Chicago Health and Aging Project (CHAP; n = 1,845) and the Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP; n = 920).
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OBSSR T32 Training in Advanced Data Analytics for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Grants Awarded
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences (OBSSR) and its partner institutes, the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Mental Health, and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, have awarded eight grants to create the Training in Advanced Data Analytics for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (TADA-BSSR) program (RFA-OD-19-011).
This new five-year training program will incorporate computational and data science analytic approaches directly into behavioral and social sciences predoctoral degree programs to support the development of a cohort of specialized scholars pursuing careers in health-related research with competencies in data science analytics. This funding opportunity was designed to address key methodology innovation and training priorities in the OBSSR Strategic Plan 2017-2021 (PDF, 4,782 KB).
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NIH One Step Closer to Speeding Delivery of COVID-19 Testing Technologies to Those Who Need It Most Through RADx-UP
This piece was authored in collaboration with the leadership of several institutes at NIH and represents a unified effort to meet the challenges presented by the COVID-19 pandemic with excellence and innovation.
Before the nation can safely return to business as usual, it will be essential to develop and deliver effective and reliable COVID-19 testing and then implement it widely so that it is available to everyone. The NIH is rising to this challenge through the NIH’s Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative—a national call for scientists and organizations to advance their innovative ideas for new COVID-19 testing approaches and strategies.
To speed innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies for COVID-19 testing, NIH will use a variety of mechanisms, including extramural grants, contracts, and cooperative agreements, to move more advanced diagnostic technologies swiftly through the development pipeline toward commercialization and widespread availability—with the goal of making millions of tests available to Americans each week, especially those most vulnerable to and disproportionately affected by COVID-19.
To achieve this goal, NIH is partnering with other government organizations, including the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
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NIH Adherence Network Distinguished Speakers Webinar: Public Health Mitigation of COVID-19—An Adherence Challenge
The NIH Adherence Network is hosting a webinar on Wednesday, July 29, 2020, from 1–2 p.m. ET. OBSSR Director William T. Riley, Ph.D., is the guest presenter.
Presentation Description
The mitigation of the COVID-19 pandemic necessitates that nearly all of the population follow various recommendations, including handwashing, social distancing, wearing facial coverings, etc. Although adherence research has focused primarily on medication adherence, there is a considerable literature on how to facilitate adherence to public health behaviors, including in prior infectious disease epidemics, that can guide public health officials in methods to increase adherence to these recommendations. The current pandemic also highlights gaps in our understanding of public health adherence, and further research from this pandemic will improve our response to future public health crises.
NIH COVID-19 Research Opportunities
A list of behaviorally oriented NIH research funding opportunities for COVID-19 can be found here.
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NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee Open Meeting
Please join the next NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee (BSSR-CC) open meeting on Friday, August 7, 2020, from 9:00 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. Representatives from NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices will meet to discuss behavioral and social sciences-relevant topics.
Join WebEx meeting
Meeting number (access code): 126 088 7289
Meeting password: AugBSSRCC
Join by phone 1-650-479-3208
Call-in toll number (U.S./Canada)
Global call-in numbers
Webex Recording: 2020 NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors
The recording of the 13th NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors, held on June 8, 2020, is now available. This year marks OBSSR’s 25th anniversary, and we had an exceptional slate of honorees who presented recent and exciting innovations in behavioral and social sciences research.
Toni Antonucci, Ph.D., psychology professor and program director at the University of Michigan, is the 2020 distinguished lecturer and presented: Social Relations and Structural Lag: A Brave New Age. Dr. Antonucci’s research has improved our understanding of how social relations and networks impact health across the lifespan and particularly how social relations influence one’s ability to manage life’s challenges—a particularly timely research area given the pandemic challenges in the context of constrained social relations. Dr. Antonucci has received funding from various NIH Institutes, including NIMH and NIA, and is a recipient of the Research Career Development Award.
The Early Stage Investigator Paper Awardees presentations included:
Julia Chen-Sankey, Ph.D., M.P.P.
Postdoctoral Fellow
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
National Institutes of Health
E-cigarette marketing and youth experimentation
W. Andrew Rothenberg, Ph.D.
Research Scientist
Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy
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, Division of Epidemiology and Community Health Member, Minnesota Population Center
Faculty, Center for Leadership Education in Maternal & Child Public Health
University of Minnesota
Skin tone and prenatal care outcomes among African American women
Bradley P. Turnwald, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Research Fellow
Stanford University
Mind over genome: Learning one’s genetic risk for obesity changes physiology independent of actual genetic risk
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Health Scientist Administrator (Program Officer) Opportunities at NIMH
The NIMH Division of Services and Intervention Research (DSIR) supports effectiveness research focused on optimizing preventive and therapeutic interventions (e.g., refining therapies to increase potency and efficiency; testing strategies for matching and sequencing treatments) and services research that aims to increase access, continuity, equity, efficiency, and quality of mental health care. DSIR is looking for motivated individuals to serve as a Program Officer and encourages applications from productive researchers with expertise and data-based publications in the following areas: suicide prevention research; the effectiveness of pharmacological interventions for youth and/or adults with serious mental illness; innovative strategies for refining and testing psychosocial/behavioral interventions (e.g., applications of technology; adaptive designs, modular or stepped-care approaches); research methods for leveraging large data (e.g., informatics, decision science, and other computational approaches applied to EHRs or other administrative data); and practice-based research (e.g., comparative effectiveness trials, quality improvement research, and dissemination and implementation research).
Qualifications
Applicants must be U.S citizens and have a Ph.D. or equivalent degree in an accredited college university, including acceptance of the dissertation, in an academic field or the health or pertinent sciences allied to health or health-related research.
How to Apply
Interested candidates should also send a letter of interest, including a curriculum vitae, to [email protected].
