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. Read more.
Spotlights
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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. Read more.
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.
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. Learn more and register.
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). Read more.
Recently Published Funding Announcements
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.
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Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Social, Behavioral, and Economic Impact of COVID-19 in Underserved and Vulnerable PopulationsNotice Number Key Dates Purpose
American Women: Assessing Risk Epidemiologically (AWARE) (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)FOA Number Key Dates Purpose
HEAL Initiative: Advancing Health Equity in Pain Management (R61/R33 Clinical Trial Required)FOA Number Key Dates Purpose
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