Director’s Voice
Virtual NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors on June 8.
This year marks OBSSR’s 25th anniversary and also the first year that we will conduct the Matilda White Riley (MWR) Honors virtually due to the social distancing necessities of the COVID-19 pandemic. Although we cannot conduct this ceremony in person this year, we have an exceptional slate of awardees, and I hope you’ll block out 9:00 a.m. to 12:15 p.m. on Monday, June 8, to listen to their presentations.
Our NIH Matilda White Riley Distinguished Lecturer for 2020 is Toni Antonucci, Ph.D., Elizabeth M. Douvan Collegiate Professor of Psychology and Program Director and Research Professor in the Life Course Development Program at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan. 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 received funding from various NIH Institutes including NIMH and NIA and is a recipient of the Research Career Development Award. Dr. Antonucci’s career contributions to the behavioral and social sciences are quite worthy of this award named in honor of Matilda White Riley and the prior awardees of this prestigious award.
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School violence can be extremely traumatic and devastating to all involved. In a recent publication, researchers supported by NCATS, NHGRI, NLM, the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, and Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, developed a risk assessment program to determine the likelihood that a high school student was at risk of participating in an act of school violence. Current practices for these types of assessments rely primarily on the clinicians’ subjective impression in determining the individual’s risk levels and the methods are expensive and not scalable. The focus of this study was to improve current risk assessment practices by developing a natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning process to automate and improve the risk assessment process.
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Previous research has established that parents can influence children’s emotional responses through direct and subtle behavior. In a study supported by grants from the NIMH, National Science Foundation, and the Amini Foundation, researchers examined this relationship further to determine if parents’ experiences of negative emotion impact children’s emotions. Parents have a significant influence on their children’s developing self-regulatory skills and recent research indicates that parents also influence their children’s affective states by transmitting their own affective states to their children through synchronization of physiological responses. In the current study, the researchers investigated how parents’ acute stress responses are transmitted to their children and how parental emotional suppression would affect parents’ and children’s physiological responses and behavior.
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Suicide is a leading cause of mortality in the U.S. with a 30 percent increase in suicide-related deaths between 2000 and 2016. In order to effectively employ interventions for suicide, early and accurate identification of individuals at high risk for suicide are needed. In the current study, supported by grants from the NIMH, NCATS, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute, Tommy Fuss Fund, Cancer Prevention Research Institute of Texas, Cullen Trust for Health Care, a Tepper Family MGH Research Scholarship, and the Demarest Lloyd Jr Foundation, researchers sought to improve and validate a risk-detection tool for suicide. Advances in automated techniques and the increase in the availability of longitudinal health data provide the opportunity for improved risk-detection tools.
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Register Today: NIH Matilda White Riley Honors on June 8
This year marks OBSSR’s 25th anniversary, and we have an exceptional slate of honorees who will present recent and exciting innovations in behavioral and social sciences research (BSSR). The 13th NIH Matilda White Riley Behavioral and Social Sciences Honors will be held on Monday, June 8, 2020, from 9:00 a.m. to noon ET, via WebEx. Toni Antonucci, Ph.D., psychology professor and program director at the University of Michigan, is the 2020 distinguished lecturer and will present: 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 2020 early stage investigator awardees include:
E-cigarette marketing and youth experimentation
Julia Chen-Sankey, Ph.D., M.P.P.
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities
Examining the internalizing pathway to substance use in 10 cultural groups around the world
Andrew Rothenberg, Ph.D.
Duke University Center for Child and Family Policy
Skin tone and prenatal care outcomes among African-American women
Jaime C. Slaughter-Acey, Ph.D., M.P.H.
University of Minnesota
Mind over genome: Learning one’s genetic risk for obesity changes physiology independent of actual genetic risk
Bradley P. Turnwald, Ph.D.
Stanford University
Individuals with disabilities who need reasonable accommodation to participate in this event should contact erica.moore2@nih.gov, 301-594-4392, and/or the Federal Relay (1-800-877-8339).
View the meeting agenda and register today
NIH Mobilizes National Innovation Initiative for COVID-19 Diagnostics
The NIH recently announced a new initiative aimed at speeding innovation, development, and commercialization of COVID-19 testing technologies, a pivotal component needed to return to normal during this unprecedented global pandemic. With a $1.5 billion investment from federal stimulus funding, the newly launched Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics (RADx) initiative will infuse funding into early innovative technologies to speed development of rapid and widely accessible COVID-19 testing. At the same time, NIH will seek opportunities to move more advanced diagnostic technologies swiftly through the development pipeline toward commercialization and broad availability. NIH will work closely with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to advance these goals.
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NCCIH Requests Input on FY2021-2026 Strategic Plan
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health's (NCCIH) next strategic plan will guide its future research efforts and priority setting. As NCCIH begins identifying areas of need and scientific opportunity, they would like to hear from the community of researchers, clinicians, patients, policymakers, members of the public, and other stakeholders to contribute to their discussions.
NCCIH issued a Request for Information (RFI) to help identify research areas and topics to be included in the new plan. They will review and consider the comments that they receive to identify current and future needs and directions for complementary and integrative health research and research training.
Take a few minutes to share your perspectives as they relate to:
- Emerging research needs and opportunities that should be considered as the Center’s 2021 plan is developed
- Research needs and opportunities articulated in the Center’s 2016 strategic plan that should be modified because of progress over the past 5 years
- Challenges or barriers to progress in research on complementary and integrative health approaches and their roles in improving health and health care
- Gaps and opportunities across the research continuum from basic through clinical studies, including real-world studies
- Gaps and opportunities in considering whole person health and the relationships among numerous factors, including biologic, environmental, behavioral, mental, and social factors, in determining health
You may email your suggestions directly to nccihstrategicplan@mail.nih.gov or enter the information online at https://www.nccih.nih.gov/nccih2021-rfi.
View the Full RFI
ODP Is Seeking a Health Scientist Administrator
The Office of Disease Prevention (ODP) is seeking an energetic, highly motivated, detail-oriented professional to assist with the implementation of key components of the ODP Strategic Plan.
Roles and Responsibilities
- Initiate and lead NIH-wide research efforts in prevention science by identifying gaps and designing research initiatives in disease prevention.
- Develop and strengthen NIH-wide, trans-DHHS and other partnerships and develop creative strategies for working with partners to advance disease prevention in a variety of research areas, including nutrition, physical activity, and/or obesity as well other priority areas such as clinical and community preventive services, health disparities, and leading causes of morbidity and mortality in the United States.
- Lead and serve as a scientific ODP liaison on NIH-wide and across-DHHS committees and participate on special projects coordinated across DHHS, NIH, and other partners.
- Lead the development and facilitation of scientific interest groups, and development of new FOAs and other initiatives for addressing important gap areas in prevention.
Desired Qualifications
- Ph.D. or equivalent degree with experience in epidemiology, health behavior, prevention science, and/or public health.
- Expertise in nutrition, physical activity, and/or obesity.
- Knowledge of the NIH prevention portfolio, including major NIH-wide prevention research initiatives and priorities.
- Knowledge of the prevention research community both inside and outside of the NIH and be able to leverage this network and facilitate collaborative initiatives and activities to promote collaborative research.
- Experience organizing, facilitating, and leading scientific workgroups and interest groups.
- Strong analytical, problem-solving, and organizational skills.
- Excellent written and oral communication skills with demonstrated ability to convey complex information to a variety of audiences.
- Strong interpersonal skills and demonstrated ability to cultivate partnerships and maintain relationships at all levels across an organization to develop and implement program priorities.
- Ability to work independently and as part of a team on multiple time-sensitive projects simultaneously.
The NIH encourages application and nomination of qualified women, minorities, and individuals with disabilities.
Inquiries to this recruitment can be sent to Marlon Bankhead, at bankheadmt@nih.gov by May 22, 2020.
All applications must be received through USA Jobs. The application period is May 18-27, 2020, for vacancy announcements NIH-GR-MP-20-10812389 and NIH-GR-DE-20-10807442.
Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplements for NIH grants to Add or Expand Research Focused on Maternal Mortality
Notice Number
NOT-OD-20-104
Key Dates
First Available Due Date: May 5, 2020
Expiration Date: June 23, 2020
Purpose
An estimated 700 women die each year in the U.S. from conditions related to or associated with pregnancy or childbirth (the highest rate among developed nations), and over 50,000 women experience severe maternal morbidity (SMM). In response to the rising maternal mortality (MM) in the United States (U.S.), the IMPROVE initiative will support research on how to mitigate preventable MM, decrease SMM, and promote health equity in the U.S. IMPROVE will aim to use an integrated approach to understand biological, behavioral, sociocultural, and structural factors contributing to MM/SMM by building an evidence base for improved care and outcomes in specific populations and regions of the country. IMPROVE will be a multipronged, innovative research initiative designed to target health disparities and populations disproportionately affected by MM/SMM, including African American (AA), American Indian/Alaskan Native (AI/AN), Asian Pacific Islander, Hispanic/Latina, very young women and women of advanced maternal age, and people with disabilities. Geographical disparities and social determinants of health (SDoH), including education, racism, and socioeconomic standing will also be addressed by the IMPROVE approach.
View NOT-OD-20-104
Advancing Research to Develop Improved Measures and Methods for Understanding Multimorbidity (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
Notice Number
PAR-20-179
Key Dates
Earliest Submission Date: September 5, 2020
Expiration Date: September 8, 2023
Purpose
This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications that seek to improve the availability, quality, and utility of data and measures that capture multimorbidity or multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) and the methods for analyzing multimorbidity data. Research supported by this initiative should be designed to discover, develop, and/or evaluate MCC measures/tools that reflect the longitudinality and life course diversity of multimorbidity. This includes but is not limited to measures/tools to support basic mechanistic discovery of shared MCC pathways using animal models of MCCs, and identification and initial biological, analytical, and clinical evaluation of MCC shared signatures. Also sought are patient-focused studies that capture patient reports and related constructs such as functional limitations and quality of life; analytic approaches best suited for use with multimorbidity data and matched to target populations; and approaches that fully harness the wealth of multimorbidity data available in EHR systems. Studies may make use of existing data and data linkages to explore new research questions related to co-occurring MCCs.
Prospective applicants whose research interests relate to studies that identify shared mechanisms or development of innovative interventions to address MCCs should see PAR-20-180.
View PAR-20-179
Identifying Innovative Mechanisms or Interventions that Target Multimorbidity and Its Consequences (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
FOA Number
PAR-20-180
Key Dates
Earliest Submission Date: September 5, 2020
Expiration Date: September 8, 2023
Purpose
This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications that seek to support the identification of shared mechanisms and development of innovative interventions to address multimorbidity or multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) and its consequences. Intervention research supported by this initiative should be designed to study: (1) mechanisms or pathways that prevent MCCs, including the identification of early biomarkers, behavioral pathways, and individual and contextual risk factors and interactions that contribute to the development of common MCCs; (2) targeted therapies and management, including self-management, of MCCs to delay progression and prevent onset of new diseases; and (3) innovative health care partnership models for managing or treating MCCs. Studies may include shared mechanisms, and assessments of interactions between risk factors and interventions that address MCCs at different periods of the lifespan in diverse populations. Use of innovative technologies to assess and intervene on risk factors and pathways are encouraged. Studies may also include those that make use of existing data and/or data linkages to explore new research questions that may be helpful in understanding the impact of mechanisms in isolation or in combination. Of particular interest are interventions that target prevention and treatment of multiple chronic health conditions, including study designs that address therapeutic targets for preventing co-occurring MCCs.
Prospective applicants whose research interests relate to developing improved measures and methods for understanding multimorbidity, including but not limited to measures/tools to support basic mechanistic discovery of shared MCC pathways and identification and initial evaluation of MCC shared signatures, should see PAR-20-179.
View PAR-20-180
