The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) Connector Monthly Newsletter is a monthly e-newsletter featuring updates from OBSSR Director William T. Riley, Ph.D., information about behavioral and social sciences in the news, events and announcements, findings from recently published research, funding announcements, and other updates. The current newsletter is provided below.
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Director's Voice
NIH Behavioral and Social Science COVID-19 Research Funding. Halfway through this 2020 Fiscal Year (FY), we experienced a global pandemic, SARS-CoV-2, that has thus far resulted in over 34 million cases (over 7 million in the US) and over one million deaths (over 200,000 in the US), disproportionately affecting those already experiencing health disparities (e.g., under-resourced minorities, poor, vulnerable). All of us, even those not infected, have experienced life disruptions unprecedented in our lifetimes.
NIH rapidly responded to the public health crisis and the research needs of the crisis. Development and evaluation of therapeutics and vaccines have occurred at a robust and rapid pace, combining and coordinating public and private sector resources through the ACTIV program. Complementing this is the RADx program to speed innovation in the development, commercialization, and implementation of technologies for COVID-19 testing.
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In response to COVID-19, affected countries have imposed a range of public health strategies to manage outbreaks. In a recent study funded by NIGMS, researchers use modeling techniques to assess the long-term potential of success using these approaches. Typically, these strategies have fallen into two categories – “suppression” and “mitigation.” Broadly speaking, the goal of the suppression strategy is to drastically reduce COVID-19 transmission rates and stop endogenous transmission in the target population, while the goal of the mitigation strategy is to achieve herd immunity by allowing the virus to spread through the population while mitigating disease burden as to not overwhelm the healthcare system.
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Digital interventions through smartphone applications are intended to improve treatment barriers for cessation of cigarette smoking, the leading cause of early death and disability worldwide. Despite the availability of nearly 500 English-language smartphone applications to date, only 5 randomized trials have tested the efficacy of some of these applications on abstinence rates. A study funded by NCI compared the efficacy of two smartphone applications- a more typical smoking cessation treatment model based on the United States Clinical Practice Guidelines (USCPG) versus an alternative treatment model based on acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT).
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Sleep has garnered attention over the years for its relationship with health outcomes. Research supported by the NHLBI, NIMH, and NCATS sought to study the natural history of insomnia symptoms in children that were followed into adolescence to establish population-based rates to better understand the course of insomnia, as well as risk factors. In youth, falling asleep and/or staying asleep are one of the most common parent-reported insomnia symptoms; with a prevalence in childhood and adolescence of 20-25%. Prior research has yielded varying estimates of persistence rates of insomnia symptoms in youth that range from 0% over a 12-year period to 52% over a 4-year period. Due to this high variability in results, the researchers examined individual risk factors that contribute to the persistence and incidence of insomnia symptoms in youth.
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Registration Now Open: NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival (December 1-2 - Virtual Event)
OBSSR and the NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Coordinating Committee (BSSR-CC) invite you to attend the 2020 NIH Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Festival: Connecting People to Advance Health on December 1-2, 2020, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. This event will be virtual.
This annual festival brings together behavioral and social scientists across the NIH extramural and intramural communities to network, collaborate, and share scientific ideas; highlight recent NIH funded behavioral and social sciences research; and explore ways to advance behavioral and social sciences research across biomedical and health-related fields.
Visit the NIH BSSR festival website to register and view the festival agenda and speaker biographies. Free registration for this event is required. Registration closes on November 30, 2020.
If you have questions about the festival or require reasonable accommodations, please contact Dana Schloesser at 301-451-3975 or dana.schloesser@nih.gov and/or the Federal Relay at 1-800-877-8339.
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NIH awards grants for firearm injury and mortality prevention research
The NIH is committed to understanding effective public health interventions to prevent violence, including firearm violence, and the trauma, injuries, and mortality resulting from violence. In response to funding provided to NIH through the FY2020 Further Consolidated Appropriations Act (H.R. 1865) to conduct research on firearm injury and mortality prevention, NIH solicited applications for research to improve understanding of the determinants of firearm injury, the identification of those at risk of firearm injury (including both victims and perpetrators), the development and evaluation of innovative interventions to prevent firearm injury and mortality, and the examination of approaches to improve the implementation of existing, evidence-based interventions to prevent firearm injury and mortality.
We are pleased to announce the awards were made, totaling approximately $8.5 million. These awards build upon the existing NIH violence research portfolio and address gaps and emerging opportunities to understand and prevent firearm violence injury and mortality.
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Behavioral Science Can Help Increase Social Mitigation Adherence
This NIH Record article features OBSSR Director William T. Riley, Ph.D.
The CDC has recommended that, in response to the global coronavirus pandemic, everyone wash their hands often, stay at least 6 feet away from other people, wear face coverings in public and stay home if they’re sick, said Dr. William Riley. Adhering to these mitigation strategies is critical to slowing the spread of Covid-19.
Just telling people to follow these recommendations, however, won’t persuade them to do it, said Riley, director of NIH’s Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research. He spoke at a recent NIH Adherence Network Distinguished Speakers program webinar. Rather, health officials must use several strategies to encourage behavioral change.
One of the most important strategies, he said, is for public health officials to communicate credible and trustworthy information quickly, honestly and repeatedly. These officials must also refresh their messaging campaigns periodically to maintain adherence and acknowledge how hard it is to follow the CDC’s recommendations over time.
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Celebrating successes and next steps for the Science of Behavior Change Program
This blog is co-authored by Janine Simmons, Chief, Individual Behavioral Processes Branch, National Institute on Aging, and Chandra Keller, Social Science Analyst, National Institute on Aging.
We all know first-hand how tough it can be to adopt and maintain healthy behaviors, even though we know that poor health behaviors account for a good portion of the disease burden in the United States.
In response to this challenge, NIH launched the Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Common Fund Program in 2009. The program was established with two major long-term goals: 1) to promote a systematic approach to discovering the mechanisms underlying successful behavior change, and 2) to provide blueprints for developing behavior interventions that could reliably improve health outcomes.
Over the past 10 years, under the leadership of co-chairs Dr. Richard J. Hodes, director, NIA; and Dr. Patricia Grady, former director, National Institute of Nursing Research, SOBC has hosted several scientific workshops and annual meetings of investigators and supported 48 awards and administrative supplements. You can learn more about the work of SOBC’s network of researchers in special issues of Behavioural Research and Therapy (February 2018), Health Psychology Review (February 2020), and Health Psychology (September 2020).
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Webinar: Designing Sexual and Reproductive Health Research with and for Sexual and Gender Minority People (October 20)
NIH's Sexual & Gender Minority Research Office (SGMRO) is hosting a webinar on October 20, 2020, from 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. ET on “Designing Sexual and Reproductive Health Research with and for Sexual and Gender Minority People.” This webinar will be co-presented by Heidi Moseson, PhD, MPH (she/her), Epidemiologist at Ibis Reproductive Health, and Juno Obedin-Maliver, MD, MPH, MAS (she/her), Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Epidemiology and Population Health at Stanford University of School of Medicine, and Co-Director of The PRIDE Study.”
Visit the SGMRO webinar series website to register and view the abstract and speaker biographies. Free registration for this event is required.
Individuals with disabilities who need Sign Language Interpreters and/or reasonable accommodation to participate in this event should contact Shyam Patel at the SGMRO (shyam.patel@nih.gov), and/or the Federal Relay at 1-800-877-8339.
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Genomics for Social Scientists - New Epigenetic Data Course
Researchers from the University of Michigan invite you to apply to the first ever Genomics for Social Scientists-Epigenetics workshop, which due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, will be held remotely January 11-14, 2021 (Monday through Thursday). The purpose of this NIA sponsored workshop on epigenetic research is to familiarize researchers with epigenetic data and to provide instruction on best practices for incorporating these data with social science analyses.
To accommodate as many time zones as possible, the live lecture and discussion portion of the course will run from 12PM to 2PM Eastern. Labs will run from 9AM-11AM Eastern and again from 2:30PM-4:30PM (you will be asked to choose one lab group).
Applications for the course include a recent CV and a 1 page statement of training and interest. It is expected that students have some introductory background in genomics and computing (e.g. completed the GeSS or RSF introductory courses or something comparable). Applications are due November 1, 2020.
Questions? Contact genomicsworkshop@umich.edu for more information.
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A Novel Approach to Childhood Obesity Prevention from National Collaborative on Childhood Obesity Research (NCCOR)
A novel taxonomic approach to obesity prevention using existing U.S. obesity prevention studies is highlighted in a special supplement of the peer-reviewed journal Childhood Obesity. The studies demonstrate an approach to breaking down and reaggregating study specifics to enable a determination of which obesity intervention strategies work and under what circumstances. Click here to read the supplement now. The research reported in this supplement was supported by OBSSR.
“The Childhood Obesity Evidence Base Project” is guest edited by Deborah Young-Hyman, PhD, OBSSR, and Laura Kettel Khan, PhD, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The issue includes these studies:
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