September 27, 2021
Director's Voice Blog
NIH awards 10 grants addressing firearm violence prevention. In recent years, approximately 40,000 deaths each year in the United States are from firearms, 60% of which are suicides and 37% of which are homicides. In 2019, firearm-related injuries were one of the leading causes of death for American children, teens, and adults less than 65 years of age. In addition to firearm deaths, many more Americans experience non-fatal firearm injuries. When firearms are involved with violent events, the risk for injury and mortality increases. Firearm violence is responsible for three quarters of all homicide deaths and is the most common and lethal means of suicide. Firearm injury and mortality also contribute to health disparities with some demographic groups being at much higher risk than others. Black males between the ages of 15 and 24 had a gun homicide rate more than 20 times higher than White males of the same age group in 2019.
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The childhood obesity rate has been steadily rising among US youths during the past two decades. Ultraprocessed foods, which are foods that are manufactured with the addition of other ingredients (fats, starches, added sugars, hydrogenated fats), may be associated with this rise in childhood obesity. In a study funded by the NIMHD, investigators found that ultraprocessed food consumption has been rising in youth and now comprises two-thirds of calories in children and teen’s diet.
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Laboratory animal research with rodents, primates, and humans have shown the impact of early life experiences on behavioral and physiological differences later in life through changes in DNA methylation. In a study partially funded by the NIEHS, researchers were the first to find an association in wild animals between early life social environments and subsequent impacts on molecular health markers and behavioral stress response later in life.
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Understanding interacting factors that occur with substance use disorder (SUD) and contribute to child neglect is essential to developing strategies to reduce child neglect. Intramural research funded by NIDA aimed to examine the relationship between neglect frequency, social support type, and parental clinical depression. Child maltreatment in the form of child neglect contributes to 75.4% of child fatalities.
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OBSSR's New Website and Historical Milestones Resource
The OBSSR website has a new look, layout, and user-friendly functionality with enhanced and expanded content. The new site includes more information on OBSSR’s coordination and collaboration within NIH, highlights training opportunities through an innovative table layout, shares available research opportunities, upcoming events, information from the OBSSR director, and more!
OBSSR’s Mission and History section features a brand-new timeline project, which recognizes the progress the Office has made since it was established in 1995. The timeline highlights milestones and research accomplishments—from OBSSR’s enactment in 1993 to the inaugural Predoctoral Training in Advanced Data Analytics for BSSR Funding Opportunity Announcement in 2018. We will soon be adding recent accomplishments and activities such as our work in firearms violence prevention, COVID-19 impacts, and behavioral ontologies to the timeline. We hope this new design will provide visitors with better insight into OBSSR’s role within the NIH, the Office’s history and future goals, and the importance of behavioral and social sciences research to public health.
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RFI: Developing Consent Language for Future Use of Data and Biospecimens
NIH announced a Request for Information (RFI) on the utility and useability of Consent for Data and Biospecimen Sharing for Future Use: Points to Consider and Sample Language. NIH has heard from its stakeholders that there is a strong interest in sharing best practices for developing informed consent language that supports sharing and NIH has worked to develop points to consider and sample language to assist in this endeavor. NIH emphasizes that any use of the sample informed consent language would be completely voluntary and will not be required.
Stakeholder feedback on this resource is essential to ensure the resource is useful to the community. The NIH is interested in any gaps or additional components that should be included, input on the points to consider, and feedback on the specific language proposed in the informed consent sample language. NIH is also interested in input on any hurdles or barriers to the voluntary use of this document by the community.
To facilitate commenting, NIH has established a web portal. To ensure consideration, comments must be received no later than September 29.
Questions may be sent to [email protected]
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Virtual Workshop: Methodological Approaches for Whole Person Research
Date: September 29, 2021 to September 30, 2021
Location: Virtual; Register on Eventbrite
The National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health’s new strategic plan defines whole person research as including three components:
- Exploring the fundamental science of interconnected systems
- Investigating multicomponent interventions or therapeutic systems
- Examining the impact of these interventions on multisystem or multiorgan outcomes
The Whole Person Research Workshop will discuss examples of research studies in these three areas from diverse fields and explore methodologies potentially appropriate for whole person research.
The workshop will be led by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH). Workshop collaborators include the National Institute on Aging, National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities, National Institute of Nursing Research, National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, Fogarty International Center, Office of Research on Women’s Health, Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, Office of Disease Prevention, and the Office of Nutrition Research within the National Institutes of Health Office of the Director.
Registration for this event is required.
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RFI on an Implementation Plan for a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource
The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) published in the Federal Register a document entitled “Request for Information (RFI) on an Implementation Plan for a National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource” and invited comments to inform the work of the National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource (NAIRR) Task Force (“Task Force”).
The Task Force has been directed by Congress to develop an implementation roadmap for a shared research infrastructure that would provide Artificial Intelligence (AI) researchers and students across scientific disciplines with access to computational resources, high-quality data, educational tools, and user support.
In response to requests by prospective commenters that they would benefit from additional time to adequately consider and respond to the RFI, OSTP and NSF have determined that an extension of the comment period until October 1, 2021, is appropriate.
Responses by Email: [email protected]. Email submissions should be machine-readable and not be copy-protected. Submissions should include “RFI Response: National AI Research Resource” in the subject line of the message.
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Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Webinar
Register for the SOBC Grand Rounds Webinar on Thursday, October 7 at 11am ET, featuring Dr. Guillaume Chevance on: Thinking Health-related Behaviors in a Climate Change Context.
Human activities have changed the biosphere so profoundly over the past two centuries that human induced climate change is now posing serious health-related treats to the current and future generations. Rapid actions from all scientific fields are needed to contribute to both the mitigation and adaption to climate change. This presentation will discuss the bi-directional associations between climate change effects (i.e., rising average temperatures, natural disasters, air pollution, rising sea level) and health-related behaviors, as well as a set of key actions/propositions for the behavioral medicine community.
Dr. Guillaume Chevance has a background in sport sciences. He received his Ph.D. in Human Movement Sciences from the University of Montpellier (France) in 2017.
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Save the Dates: 2021 NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival
Thursday, November 18, 2021 and Friday, November 19, 2021, from 1:00pm – 4:30pm ET each day.
The Annual NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival will be hosted by OBSSR and the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee. The purpose of the festival is to highlight recently funded behavioral and social sciences research that the NIH supports; bring together behavioral and social scientists within the NIH extramural and intramural communities to network with each other and share scientific ideas; and explore ways to advance behavioral and social sciences research.
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