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Below you will find a description for each Breakout Session.
You may jump to the session description by clicking on the links below.
This discussion will focus on the interface between behavioral/social and biomedical science concentrating on common challenges and successful models for overcoming these challenges. The topic will be:
How do we thrive as behavioral and social scientists in an institution that is predominantly biomedical in orientation? What lessons have we learned about how to successfully advance and integrate our sciences and their contributions to the NIH mission? Potential issues to be addressed include how to be effective at:
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Developing collaborative teams. |
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Engaging biomedical scientists in research that bridges behavioral/social and biomedical. |
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Communicating BSS to those who are unfamiliar. |
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Demonstrating the value of investing in BSS. |
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Ensuring BSS is represented on review/advisory panels and NIH Institute/Center leadership structure. |
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Addressing “health disparities”, and, more recently, “health inequities”, has been a public health priority for at least a decade. Health disparities are differences in the prevalence and course of disease, disability, and positive health endowments among populations defined by race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, or rural/urban residence. Health inequities have been defined as systematic and avoidable inequalities in health between groups of people. In either case these differences are believed to arise primarily from differences in social and economic conditions, their effects on people’s lives, and various mechanisms – structural, behavioral, psychological and physiological, that modify the risk of illness, prevention of illness, and the treatment and course of illness. This discussion will focus on the ways in which behavioral and social sciences research, theory and methods may contribute to an improved understanding of the causes of health disparities and the development of effective strategies for addressing modifiable causes. Potential topics include:
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Promising theoretical and research advances that point to modifiable mechanisms and factors in the creation and maintenance of health disparities, considering levels of influence “from societies to cells”. |
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Promising research approaches that can improve the potential for intervening at multiple levels to address health disparities, from individual-level interventions to interventions, strategies and policies directed at national populations, vulnerable groups, health care and other institutions, neighborhoods and families. |
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New avenues for research to improve the dissemination and translation of knowledge about the processes producing health disparities into cost-effective interventions, policies, and strategies to address modifiable causes. |
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Development of research designs and methodologies for studying the causes of health disparities and the effectiveness of potential solutions, including experimental, comparative, and systems approaches. |
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The discussion will focus on community-based participatory research (CBPR) and community engagement approaches in the conduct of research in the behavioral and social sciences. Community-partnered research processes offer the potential to generate better-informed hypotheses; develop more effective measurements, study designs, and interventions; improve the interpretation of research results; and enhance the translation of the research findings into practice. This discussion will address a range of issues relevant to CBPR and community engagement approaches, potentially including:
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Issues in the development and maintenance of successful academic-community partnerships |
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Strategies for managing the tradeoffs between scientific and community considerations in the design and conduct of research |
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Methodological issues such as definition of community and selection of community partners, enhancing the reliability and validity of measurement instruments, and improving overall data collection |
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Increasing the potential for translation of evidence-based research into sustainable community change |
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Improving interpretation and dissemination of research findings |
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Strategies for evaluating CBPR and community engagement approaches in the contexts of scientific review, project monitoring, and formal program evaluations |
Participants will be encouraged to consider barriers to academic and community partnered research, and to identify steps to address these barriers and move community-based participatory research and community engagement approaches forward.
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Advances in neuroscience are bringing us closer to an understanding of the neurobiological underpinnings of human behavior. This discussion will address research on current and future developments in this exciting area of science. Potential topics include:
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Neural structures, pathways, and mechanisms underlying learning, cognition, emotion, perception, and motivation. |
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Neural bases of social behaviors and social relationships. |
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Neural bases of appetitive behaviors, such as ingestive and sexual behaviors and addiction. |
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Contributions of neuroscience to understanding decision-making processes and economic behavior across the age span. |
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Role of the nervous system in the transduction of psychosocial and environmental stressors into health outcomes across the life span. |
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Interactions among brain, behaviors, and the genome. |
Participants will be encouraged to share ideas about the state of the science in these areas, their impact on behavioral and social science research, the most important questions to be addressed in these areas moving forward, and the challenges and potential innovations that could advance research.
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This discussion will focus on how best to advance the science of disease prevention and health promotion, including identifying potential the next steps should be in behavior change and adherence research. Potential topics include:
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Identification of current or future activities in this area that are prime opportunities for synergy across ICs. |
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What are the most important gaps in research on the prevention of disease, promotion of health behavior change, and adherence to medical and behavioral regimens? |
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Where are some of strongest examples of success in these areas and how can we capitalize on these successes to advance science and health in other disease areas? |
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How can we better support translational research and dissemination to clinical care and community settings? |
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What methodological tools and/or theoretical frameworks should be brought to bear on the health promotion/disease prevention area to move the research forward? |
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What are some of the more promising recent advances in basic behavioral sciences that provide opportunities for translating new models, methodologies, and strategies for health promotion and adherence? |
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Will projected changes in the U.S. population and health care system pose unique challenges and/or opportunities for prevention science, health behavior change and adherence research? How can these challenges be met and opportunities realized? |
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What is needed to advance the science of adherence beyond where it is today in order to create the “next generation” of adherence-promoting interventions? |
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How can we generate interest in the field of prevention, health promotion and adherence to support the “next generation” of research? |
Participants will be encouraged to consider barriers (within NIH and out side of NIH) to research and application in prevention and adherence research, and to identify steps to address these barriers and move the field forward.
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This discussion will focus on issues in conducting and promoting health –related research that is based on and contributes to the advancement of behavioral theory. Potential topics include:
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Knowledge gaps in application of theory to health-related outcomes. |
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Integrating theory at multiple levels of intervention or measurement. |
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Enhancing methodological and statistical approaches for testing theory. |
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Advancing theory by studying multiple behaviors. |
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Secondary data analysis to advance health behavior theory. |
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Combining data sets to advance health behavior theory. |
Participants will be encouraged to 1. Consider barriers to theory testing and development in NIH-funded behavioral research and 2. Elucidate practical steps to address these barriers.
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This discussion will focus on the role that a rapidly changing health information technology environment will play in enabling better health through behavioral and social support tools. Potential topics for discussion include:
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Understanding the role that Electronic Health Records (EHR) may serve in supporting patient-centered care. |
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Understanding the role Consumer Health Informatics may play in supporting a paradigm shift for active engagement in personal health and the health of loved ones and developing technologies that support the diffusion of health information across socio-demographic groups |
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Applying principles of human factors to improve the fit between cognitive / behavioral capacities and system design. |
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Exploring the role of information technology, such as cyber-infrastructure, at the intersection of behavioral, biomedical, genomic, environmental, and epidemiologic health information. |
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This discussion will address research that aims to understand the mechanisms through which environmental, behavioral, and genetic influences interact to produce phenotypes and how this information might inform health promotion interventions. Potential topics include:
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Develop a “science of environment” that can advance our understanding of environmental influences on health by integrating environmental exposures with genetic advances. |
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Consider the social environment as a moderator of genetic susceptibility and health, including the role of social stressors and support. |
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Further our understanding of the role of individual health behaviors (such as, physical activity and diet) on phenotypic expression. |
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Develop appropriate measurement tools at the individual-, community-, and family-level in order to capture environmental, behavioral, and psychosocial influences that can be used to investigate gene x environment interactions. |
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Understand the role of feedback regarding genetic susceptibility of disease on the adoption of health promoting behaviors and disease prevention in different populations. |
Participants will be encouraged to share ideas about the challenges and potential innovations that could advance research in these areas.
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This discussion will address advancement in measurement, methods, and data necessary for understanding the complex role of social and biological systems in health. What will behavioral and social science data look like in 2020 and how will we measure and model it? Potential topics include:
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Identification of new constructs that need to be measured in order to explain associations between social factors and health. |
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Synchronize measurement of existing constructs across behavioral and social science disciplines to allow for comparison across studies. |
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Models and tools that integrate social systems with biological systems as we move towards a bio-social explanation of health. |
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Open source and team science using cyberinfrastructure. |
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Innovation in measurement tools, such as ecological momentary assessment, virtual worlds, and biometrics. |
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Approaches for “big data”: Informatics and data mining. |
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Mixed method approaches. |
Participants will be encouraged to share ideas about the challenges and potential innovations that could advance research in these areas.
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NIH-funded behavioral and social science has much to contribute to informing efforts to design systems that provide Americans access to affordable and effective health care. This discussion will address research on various dimensions of this problem. Potential topics include:
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Lessons from behavioral economics and cognitive science on the design of incentives and other strategies to affect provider and patient behaviors. |
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Behavioral and structural factors affecting quality of care and the social and psychological dimensions of how “quality” is defined and perceived. |
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Effects of health policies on health-risk and care-seeking behaviors as well as health outcomes, both at the individual and population levels. |
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Effects of policy on clinical decision making. |
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Effects of policies outside the domain of health (e.g., welfare, family, immigration) on population health. |
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Potential contributions of advances in sciences relating to health promotion, prevention, and self-care to the development of a sustainable health care system. |
Participants will be encouraged to share ideas about the mission of the NIH in these areas, how we are addressing that mission, and what can be done to advance it in ways that will inform the public debate on health care.
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This discussion will address research on the mechanisms that link health and disease and social, environmental, and psychological processes. Potential topics include:
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Effects of policy, economic systems and economic change, culture and cultural processes, institutions (e.g., churches, work environments), and community built and social environments on health and disease pathways. |
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Effects of social relationships, including ties to family members, friends, co-workers, and others, and the effects of social network structures, on health and disease. |
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Effects of stress on health and disease. |
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Effects of policy on clinical decision making. |
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Effects of policies outside the domain of health (e.g., welfare, family, immigration) on population health. |
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Psychological risk and protective factors or processes in health and disease, such as sensation-seeking, cognitive ability, religiosity, and emotional regulation. |
Participants will be encouraged to focus on health at the individual as well as the population level, and to share ideas about the challenges and potential innovations that could advance research in these areas.
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