Register: 2019 NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival

Event Date and Location: Friday, December 6, 2019—NIH Campus, Natcher Conference Center (Bldg. 45). OBSSR and the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee (BSSR-CC) invite you to attend the 2019 NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival: Connecting People to Advance Health. The festival is open to the public. Please share this information with your networks.

Keynote Presenter: Chanita Hughes-Halbert, Ph.D.
Distinguished AT&T Endowed Chair for Cancer Equity,
Medical University of South Carolina

Presenting: Behavioral Science issues in Minority Health and Cancer Health Disparities Research

Featured Presenter: Alia Crum, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of Psychology,
Stanford University

Presenting: Harnessing Mindset in 21st Century Healthcare

The agenda also includes three plenary sessions featuring a wide range of distinguished researchers on:

1. Behavioral and Social Sciences Research in Health and Wellness;
2. Incorporating Cutting-Edge Technology in Behavioral and Social Sciences Research; and
3. Brain and Behavior.

Individuals with disabilities who need Sign Language Interpreters and/or reasonable accommodation to participate in this event should contact Dana Greene Schloesser, [email protected], 301-451- 3975, and/or the Federal Relay at 1-800-877-8339. Register and View Agenda

OBSSR R25 Short Courses on Innovative Methodologies and Approaches in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Awarded

OBSSR and participating Institutes and Offices re-issued Short Courses on Innovative Methodologies and Approaches in the Behavioral and Social Sciences (RFA-OD-19-012). This program will support educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research needs. This funding opportunity is designed to fill educational gaps and needs in the behavioral and social sciences research community that are not being addressed by existing educational opportunities. OBSSR announces the following recipients:

• Debra Haire-Joshu: Mentored Education for Dissemination and Implementation Science (MEDIS) Program
• Vivek Shetty: Training Institutes for Mobile Health (mHealth) Methodologies
• David B. Allison: Strengthening Causal Inference in Behavioral Obesity Research
• Briana M. Mezuk: Summer Training Program in Integrative Methods for Mental and Physical Health
• Joseph J. Gallo: Mixed Methods Research Training Program
• Linda M. Collins: Optimization of Behavioral and Biobehavioral Interventions: Building Investigator Capacity Nationwide
• Kenneth E. Freedland: Innovative Approaches to Randomized Behavioral Clinical Trials

The Office of Disease Prevention is providing co-funding for Haire-Joshu, Shetty, and Allison. The National Heart Lung and Blood Institute is providing co-funding for Freedland. Read More

Webinar Recording: Advancing BSSR to Address National Priorities for Health Care and Population Health Improvement

The OBSSR Director’s Webinar recording, featuring guest presenter Felicia Hill-Briggs, Ph.D., ABPP, Professor of Medicine and Core Faculty of the Welch Center for Prevention, Epidemiology, and Clinical Research at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is now available. Facilitators of BSSR intervention integration into practice are emerging. To illustrate, diabetes is presented as a priority disease example for value-based care. Diabetes, which affects over 30 million Americans and costs $327 billion annually in direct medical costs and reduced productivity, is a disease with concomitant lifestyle, behavioral, and mental health factors. Three diabetes-related BSSR interventions are used to demonstrate pathways to BSSR integration into health care and population health practice: the Collaborative Care Model; the National Diabetes Prevention Program; and DECIDE, a diabetes self-management program. Features of pathways to integration are discussed. Implications for the design and outcomes reporting of BSSR interventions to facilitate readiness for integration into practice in the current era are identified.

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Save the Date: TIDIRC 2020 Facilitated Course

Save the Date for the Training Institute in Dissemination and Implementation Research in Cancer (TIDIRC) 2020.

November 18, 2019: Application Period Opens
January 15, 2020: Application Period Closes
Early March: Online Course Begins
August 3–4, 2020: In-Person Training, Bethesda, MD

One of the most critical issues impeding improvements in public health today is the enormous gap between what we know can optimize health and health care and what gets implemented in everyday practice. The science of dissemination and implementation (D&I) seeks to address this gap by understanding how best to ensure that evidence-based strategies to improve health and prevent disease are effectively delivered in clinical and public health practice.

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) Division of Cancer Control and Population Sciences (DCCPS) hosts this training institute to provide participants with a thorough grounding in conducting dissemination and implementation (D&I) research with a specific focus on cancer, across the cancer control continuum. The institute utilizes a combination of an online course (six modules with related assignments), and a 2-day in-person training. Faculty and guest lecturers consist of leading experts in theory, implementation, and evaluation approaches to D&I; creating partnerships and multilevel, transdisciplinary research teams; research design, methods, and analyses appropriate for D&I; and conducting research at different and multiple levels of intervention (e.g., clinical, community, policy).

This training is designed for investigators at any career stage interested in conducting D&I research with a focus on the cancer continuum. There is no cost associated with the training. Invited participants are required to cover related travel expenses to the Washington, D.C., area for the in-person meeting.

Visit the Training Institute website for more details as to participant eligibility, application process, and responses to frequently asked questions.

National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers

Registration is now open for the National Research Summit on Care, Services, and Supports for Persons with Dementia and Their Caregivers on March 24–25, 2020, hosted by the National Institute on Aging at the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland. There is also an opportunity to submit poster abstracts for consideration by November 15, 2019. Please see the recent NIA blog post and visit the 2020 Summit website for details, including the themes and topics anticipated to be addressed.

Learn More