October 19, 2021
Director's Voice Blog
Empowering Kids in Challenging Times.
This blog is co-authored by Dr. Diana Bianchi, NICHD Director, on Children’s Health Day. More information about NICHD can be found here.
October 4 is Children’s Health Day, and the pandemic has made these challenging times for the health of our children. Children have missed in-person learning as well as health-promoting resources such as school lunch programs during the pandemic. Despite the best efforts of school systems to provide virtual learning, it is estimated that our children are coming into this school year about a half-year behind, more so for those who are more vulnerable to COVID-19, including children with intellectual and developmental disabilities or who come from disadvantaged communities.
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During the COVID-19 pandemic, did domestic violence increase or decrease? A study funded by NIA and NHLBI aimed to answer this question. According to the literature, domestic violence is often correlated with social and financial stress. Researchers hypothesized that stress and emotional strain may exacerbate negative coping mechanisms, leading to interpersonal violence. Accordingly, COVID-19 presents a population-wide stressor that could be correlated with an increase in reported domestic violence.
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The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted several domains of everyday life, including alcohol and drug use. A publication (Pelham, et al. 2021) from the ongoing Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study, funded by NIMH and NIDA, monitored self-reported substance use patterns and anxiety levels of 7,842 adolescents for six months after the first stay-at-home orders. Researchers found that alcohol use in adolescents declined during the COVID-19 pandemic, but rates of nicotine use, and prescription drug misuse rose, potentially due to the decrease in social settings and ability to hide these types of substances around family.
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Chronic social isolation and loneliness can have major impacts on health, including altering sleep quality. Reduced sleep quality is a factor that has been shown to be related to loneliness and poor health outcomes. However, it is currently unknown how normal sleep patterns are impacted by social isolation. The goal of the NIGMS and NINDS funded research was to investigate the impact of chronic social isolation in fruit flies (Drosophila) to better understand potential genes that may influence the changes in behavior.
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Retirement of William T. Riley, Ph.D., NIH Associate Director for Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
With enormous gratitude for his many contributions to behavioral and social sciences research (BSSR) at the NIH, I announce that William (Bill) T. Riley, Ph.D., will be retiring from NIH at the end of December 2021. For the past 7 years in his dual roles as NIH Associate Director for BSSR and Director of the Office of BSSR, Bill has done an outstanding job advancing understanding of the field and integrating BSSR into broader biomedical research efforts. Bill has led OBSSR during a time of a great change in the field. The integration of BSSR with the neuroscience, genetics, and “omics” fields is beginning to shed light on the many complex interactions between the brain, behavior, and the environment. Advances in measurement science and technologies are providing data on the influence of human behavior on health at levels of detail previously unimaginable. Expanding sources of integrated population-level data provide both the platform to better monitor the behavioral and social influences on health and the ability to assess population-level interventions more rigorously. The health of the nation is shaped primarily by behavior and social influences, and research in this area provides the tools to help people modify their behaviors to improve their health. OBSSR, under Bill’s direction, plays a key role in that effort.
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Register: NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival
Join the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) virtually on Thursday, November 18 and Friday, November 19, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. each day, for the annual NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (BSSR) Festival.
Register to attend and view the festival agenda and speaker biographies: https://www.scgcorp.com/obssrfest2021/Registration
The festival, hosted by OBSSR and in collaboration with the NIH BSSR Coordinating Committee, will showcase exciting research results, emerging areas, and innovations in health related BSSR. Presenters were selected from nominations made by various NIH Institutes and Centers to highlight impactful BSSR funded across NIH.
If you have a disability and require reasonable accommodations to participate in this event, please contact Danielle Johnikin at (301) 670-4990 or djohnikin@scgcorp.com and/or the Federal Relay at 1-800-877-8339.
Learn More and Register
Call For Nominations: Future Directions for Applying Behavioral Economics to Policy: A Consensus Study (submit by 10/25)
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will appoint an ad hoc committee to review the evidence regarding the application of insights from behavioral economics to key public policy objectives (e.g., related to public health, multiple areas of chronic illness [including mental health and HIV], economic well-being, responses to global climate change).
The committee will examine applications from the past 5 to 10 years (including available evidence on U.S. federal and state policy applications as well as international examples) to identify features of successful applications (including progress in methods for assessing outcomes of behavioral interventions), and also less successful applications that may offer valuable lessons.
The study will be carried out by a committee of approximately 12 volunteer experts in the fields of:
- Behavioral Economics
- Cognitive Science
- Economics
- Behavioral Medicine
- Methodology
- Psychology
You are invited to submit nominations for committee members and/or reviewers for this study by October 25, 2021.
Submit Nominations
Virtual Symposium: Understanding and Preventing Youth Hate Crimes and Identity-Based Bullying
The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is pleased to host a national symposium on preventing and combating identity-based bullying and criminal extremist hate groups. This event will be held October 27–28, 2021.
This virtual symposium will address important topics like current trends and research on identity-based bullying, cyberbullying, youth-related hate crimes, and how hate groups use social media and technology to reach, recruit, and radicalize youth. It will also provide programs and best practices on how schools, families, law enforcement, and communities can work together to build protective factors in youth and help youth resist and disengage from extremist hate groups.
The symposium is being supported in part by NIH staff.
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Call for Nominations: Use of Race, Ethnicity, and Ancestry as Population Descriptors in Genomics Research (submit by 10/29)
An anticipated ad hoc committee under the auspices of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Health and Medicine Division will convene to review and assess the existing methodologies, benefits, and challenges in the use of race and ethnicity and other population descriptors in genomics research.
The committee will produce a report that will describe best practices on the use of race, ethnicity, and genetic ancestry and other population descriptors in genetics and genomics research, as formulated by the committee. Attention will be given to how these best practices could be used by biomedical and scientific communities to increase the robustness of study designs and methods for genetics and genomics research in the United States and globally.
The committee seeks approximately 12-15 volunteer experts in the fields of:
- Genetics/genomics (e.g. population geneticists; computational genomicists/data scientists; genetic epidemiologists; statistical geneticists)
- Social sciences (e.g. historians, ethical/legal/social implications scholars, sociologists, anthropologists, demographers, social genomicists)
- Clinical genetics (e.g. physicians, genetic counselors, nurses)
- Other members of the professional community (e.g. journal editors, medical educators)
You are invited to submit nominations for committee members and/or reviewers for this study by October 29, 2021.
Submit Nominations
New Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study Data Files Available
The FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products (CTP) and the NIH’s National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) announce the release of the Wave 5 Public-Use File (PUF) from the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study. In addition to the Wave 5 data files, an updated Master Linkage File will also be available for use by the public and researchers. The Wave 5 files consist of data collected through the PATH Study (from December 2018 through November 2019) and may be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR36498.v13. The Master Linkage Files for the PATH Study may be downloaded from https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR38008.v3.
The PATH Study is a household-based, nationally representative, longitudinal cohort study of youth (12-17 years old) and adults in the United States. The study was launched in 2011 to inform FDA’s regulatory activities under the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act. For the latest announcements, data releases and updates, new publications, upcoming events, and other information for PATH Study data users, join the PATH Study Data User Forum. The forum enables researchers using PATH Study data to submit and answer questions.
Questions about the collection, content, weighting, documentation, or structure of PATH Study data may be submitted to PATHDataUserQuestions@Westat.com (not to be used for questions about statistical analysis or analytic guidance).
In addition, the Biospecimen Access Program webpage at http://bit.ly/2wBFOtc provides information on how to access the urine, serum, plasma, and genomic DNA (gDNA) collected from adult PATH Study participants during Wave 1 (2013 – 2014) and urine collected during Wave 2 (2014 – 2015).
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Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Social, Behavioral, and Economic Impact of COVID-19 in Underserved and Vulnerable Populations
Notice Number
NOT-MH-21-330
Key Dates
First Available Due Date: October 5, 2021
Expiration Date: September 8, 2024
Purpose
NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices participating in the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Impacts of COVID-19 in Vulnerable and Health Disparity Populations initiative are issuing this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) to highlight interest in research to strengthen the understanding and response to the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and help us prepare more effectively for future public health emergencies.
View NOT-MH-21-330
American Women: Assessing Risk Epidemiologically (AWARE) (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
FOA Number
RFA-AI-21-058
Key Dates
Open Date (Earliest Submission Date): November 9, 2021
Expiration Date: December 10, 2021
Purpose
This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) will support research that combines epidemiologic methods, digital technology, and data science approaches to better understand HIV prevention, transmission, and early care-cascade points for women living in the US.
View RFA-AI-21-058
HEAL Initiative: Advancing Health Equity in Pain Management (R61/R33 Clinical Trial Required)
FOA Number
RFA-NS-22-002
Key Dates
Open Date (Earliest Submission Date): November 9, 2021
Expiration Date: December 10, 2021
Purpose
The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to solicit applications to accelerate development, testing and implementation of evidence-based interventions—that are culturally and linguistically appropriate for NIH-designated populations that experience health disparities (HDPs) in the United States—to mitigate disparities in provision of care and treatment decisions, reduce susceptibility to chronic pain and improve patient outcomes.
View RFA-NS-22-002
