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December 12, 2008
Retreat Refreshes Behavioral, Social Sciences
Dr. Christine Bachrach
Dr. Christine Bachrach, acting director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research, wanted just one thing out of the first-ever day-long retreat for NIH’s widely dispersed community of behavioral and social scientists, held Nov. 12 at Natcher Bldg.
December 12, 2008
CBT4CBT
New Hope for Treatment of Addiction
Dr. Kathleen Carroll
Drug addiction is notoriously tough to treat, but now research is showing a fresh way to tackle the problem. It’s called computer-based training for cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT4CBT)
OBSSR’s Mabry Wins with Systems Analysis Team
OBSSR’s Mabry Wins with Systems Analysis Team
More News >>
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January 28-29, 2009 Dissemination and Implementation Conference
February 9, 2009, 10:00 – 11:00 AM
Stigma: Lessons & New Directions from a Decade of Research on Mental Illness
July 12-24, 2009
OBSSR/NIH Summer Training Institute on Randomized Clinical Trials Involving Behavioral Interventions
May 3-8, 2009
Institute on Systems Science and Health
May 22-25, 2009
Gene-Environment Interplay in Stress and Health at the Association for Psychological Science 21st Annual Convention, San Francisco, CA
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Home > About OBSSR > History > BSSR Definition
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Behavioral and Social Sciences (BSSR) Definition |
A Definition of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
for the National Institutes of Health
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
National Institutes of Health
Revised June 2001
When the United States Congress created the Office of Behavioral
and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) at the National Institutes of Health,
it mandated that the Office develop a standard definition of the
field to assess and monitor funding in this area. This definition of
health-related behavioral and social sciences research was
developed in 1996 in consultation with behavioral and social scientists
and science organizations, and benefited from the leadership
of OBSSR's founding director,
Dr. Norman B. Anderson.
This definition, slightly revised in June 2000, divides
behavioral and social sciences research
into two sections: Core Areas of Research, and Adjunct Areas
of Research. The core areas of research are further divided into
basic or fundamental research and clinical research
(this distinction serves more of an organizational function rather than
representing firm boundaries within the field.) Adjunct
areas of behavioral and social sciences research include many
types of neurological research and some research on pharmacological
interventions--areas that have implications for, and are
often influences by, behavioral research.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) mission is to fund and
conduct research that will result in an improvement in health. For
the past five years, the Office of Behavioral and Social
Sciences Research (OBSSR), which is located in the Office of the Director,
has served to stimulate the growth of the behavioral and
social sciences at the NIH. Although behavioral research has a long funding
history at the NIH, we have become increasingly aware of
its vital importance to our overall mission. Behavioral
and social factors are important contributors to health
and illness and frequently interact with biological factors to influence health outcomes.
They also represent critical avenues for treatment and prevention.
When Congress created the OBSSR, it mandated that a standard definition of
behavioral and social sciences research be established. This definition was to
be used to assess and monitor funding for behavioral and social sciences
research at all of the NIH institutes, centers, and divisions. Heretofore,
there had been no single definition of the field that could be used to assess and
monitor NIH support of the behavioral and social sciences across all NIH
Institutes and Centers.
Behavioral and Social Sciences Research Defined at NIH
Behavioral and social sciences research is a large, multifaceted field,
encompassing a wide array of disciplines. The field employs a variety of
methodological approaches including: surveys and questionnaires, interviews,
randomized clinical trials, direct observation, physiological manipulations and
recording, descriptive methods, laboratory and field experiments, standardized
tests, economic analyses, statistical modeling, ethnography, and evaluation.
Yet, behavioral and social sciences research is not restricted to a set of
disciplines or methodological approaches. Instead, the field is defined by
substantive areas of research that transcend disciplinary and methodological
boundaries. In addition, several key cross-cutting themes characterize social
and behavioral sciences research. These include: an emphasis on theory-driven
research; the search for general principles of behavioral and social
functioning; the importance ascribed to a developmental, lifespan perspective;
an emphasis on individual variation, and variation across sociodemographic
categories such as gender, age, and sociocultural status; and a focus on both
the social and biological context of behavior.
The core areas of behavioral and social sciences research are divided into basic or
fundamental research and clinical research. (The basic and clinical research
distinction serves more of an organizational function for purposes of this definition,
rather than representing firm boundaries within the field.) Indeed,
many studies have both basic and clinical components. Moreover, basic and
clinical research is often complementary. Basic research frequently provides
the foundation for subsequent clinical research, and clinical research often influences
the direction of basic research.
For purposes of this definition, the term "behavioral"
refers to overt actions; to underlying psychological processes such as
cognition, emotion, temperament, and motivation; and to biobehavioral
interactions. The term "social" encompasses sociocultural,
socioeconomic, and sociodemographic status; to biosocial interactions; and to
the various levels of social context from small groups to complex cultural
systems and societal influences.
Core Areas of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research
The core areas of behavioral and social sciences research are those
that have a major and explicit focus on the understanding of
behavioral or social processes, or on the use of these processes to predict or
influence health outcomes or health risk factors. These core areas of research
are divided into basic (or fundamental) research and clinical research.
I. Basic or Fundamental Research
Basic research in the behavioral and social sciences is designed to further our understanding of fundamental mechanisms and patterns of behavioral and social functioning relevant to the Nation’s health and well-being, and as they interact with each other, with biology and the environment.
As is the case with basic biomedical research, basic behavioral and social sciences research is designed to elucidate knowledge about underlying mechanisms and processes, knowledge that is fundamental to improving the understanding, explanation, observation, prediction, prevention, and management of illnesses, as well as the promotion of optimal health and well being. The range of focus includes different “granularity” or levels of complexity. Basic behavioral and social sciences research involves both human and animal studies and spans the full range of scientific inquiry, from processes within the intra-individual level (“under the skin”), to mechanisms “outside the skin” that explain inter-individual, group, organizational, community, population, macroeconomic and other systems level patterns of collective behavior. While the primary focus of basic BSSR must ultimately be directly relevant to behavioral and social factors, the domains and units of analysis can include intra-organismic as well as inter-organismic factors (“cells to society”), over varying units of time from nanosecond to centuries, and including lifespan developmental phases and phenomena that may occur within and across generations. Some would argue that it is impossible to separate basic and applied science, because the one is bound up in the context of the other. Yet despite the complexities, it is useful to classify research into basic and applied categories, recognizing that there will always be a grey area or a band of uncertainty whose width will vary according to one’s vantage point and the rapidly evolving state of scientific knowledge.
Implications of definition for future plans for basic BSSR.
Some additional considerations for future directions in basic BSSR are noted here as one way to identify current gaps and opportunities and move the field forward. In OBSSR’s new strategic prospectus (2007) [http://obssr.od.nih.gov/pdf/OBSSR_Prospectus.pdf]; basic behavioral and social sciences research is broadly conceived to include examination of “causes” in the biomedical “reductionist” tradition as well as of “causes of the causes” within the social-ecologic framework of public health science. Like two sides of the same coin, the biomedical domain and the social-ecological domain are inextricably intertwined. Their interaction is at the core of our understanding of complex behavioral-social-health relationships. High prevalence chronic diseases are simultaneously affected by variation in the macro-environment (e.g. poverty), in lifestyle behaviors (e.g. physical activity, diet, tobacco use), and in biological susceptibility (hereditary, normal variation, epigenetic). These complex interactions, and the distribution of their variation across large populations, can produce rapid and widespread changes within a single generation, such as the new epidemics of lung cancer and type2 diabetes.
The newly evolving “systems approach” to behavioral, social and population sciences, like the successful systems approach to biomedicine, brings with it new demands on basic behavioral and social sciences. Advances in mathematics, computer sciences, statistics, informatics, imaging, internet communications, and other technological tools provide new opportunities to transform the theories, models, measures, and methods of basic BSSR. These advances will facilitate improvements in the precision, sensitivity and power of traditional basic behavioral and social science tools like self-report. New approaches to data collection will forge new conceptual models of behavioral and social processes in health and illness, at individual, group, and population levels of analysis. This contemporary view potentially redefines basic BSSR as the search for complex interactions and contextual determinants of health and illness within a systems framework. A science whose fundamental mechanisms include non-linear dynamic feedback loops. This broader definition permits the discovery of emergent properties not apparent from studying the behavior of individual agents in isolation.
The definition and expanded view of basic behavioral and social research was developed by OBSSR as part of its strategic prospectus (2007) in consultation with behavioral and social scientists, and science organizations. This definition is used as a starting point to further subdivide basic behavioral and social research into three categories: (A) research on behavioral and social processes; (B) biopsychosocial research; and (C) research on the development of behavioral or social procedures for measurement, analysis, and classification.
(A). Research on behavioral and social processes
Research on behavioral and social processes involves the study of human or animal functioning at the level of the individual, small group, institution, organization, or community. At the individual level, this research may involve the study of behavioral factors such as cognition, memory, language, perception, personality, emotion, motivation, and others. At higher levels of aggregation, it includes the study of social variables such as the structure and dynamics of small groups (e.g. couples, families, work groups, etc.); institutions and organizations (e.g. schools, religious organizations, etc.); communities (defined by geography or common interest); and larger demographic, political, economic, and cultural systems. Research on behavioral and social processes also includes the study of the interactions within and between these two levels of aggregation, such as the influence of sociocultural factors on cognitive processes or emotional responses. Finally, this research also includes the study of environmental factors (both natural and human created) such as climate, noise, environmental hazards, residential and other built environments and their effects on behavioral and social functioning.
Examples of research topics and their implications that are or could be funded by NIH Institutes and Centers include:
Sensation and perception
(Implications: neurological and mental disorders and disorders associated with abnormalities in vision, hearing, taste and smell)
Emotion and motivation
(Implications: depression, anxiety, schizophrenia, conduct disorders, normal psychological development, eating disorders, obesity, addictions, sleep disturbances, behavioral and cognitive treatments)
Vulnerability and resilience
(Implications: psychopathology, violence, effects of child abuse and neglect)
Attention, learning and memory
(Implications: mental disorders involving abnormalities in cognitive processes (e.g., schizophrenia, major depression), attention deficit disorders, learning disabilities, Alzheimer's disease and other dementias, cognitive rehabilitation, education)
Language development
(Implications: communication disorders, autism, learning disabilities)
Social influences and social cognition
(Implications: all-cause mortality, psychopathology, behavioral and cognitive treatments)
Family processes and social networks
(Implications: domestic violence, divorce, child abuse, psychopathology, all-cause mortality, child development, aging)
Sociocultural and environmental processes
(Implications: better understanding of social, cultural, and environmental antecedents to mental and physical illnesses)
(B). Biopsychosocial research
Biopsychosocial research (also known as biobehavioral or biosocial research) involves the study of the interactions of biological factors with behavioral or social variables and how they affect each other (i.e., the study of bi-directional multilevel relationships).
Examples of research topics and their implications that are or could be funded by the institutes include:
Gene by environment interactions and Epigenetics over time and Lifespan developmental phases
(Implications: better understanding of interactions among social, genetic and environmental factors affecting mental and physical illnesses, health and well-being, and health disparities, child development, in utero-exposures and later developmental trajectories)
Behavior genetics
(Implications: addictions, psychopathology, heart disease, gene expression, cancer risk, diabetes, oral health)
Behavioral, cognitive, social and economic neurosciences
(Implications: effects of brain injury, neurodegenerative diseases, learning disabilities, dementia, addictions, sleep disorders, schizophrenia, neurological development, and plasticity, stigma and stereotyping, chronic stress)
Psychoneuroimmunology
(Implications: stress effects on health, AIDS, dental problems, infections)
Psychopharmacology
(Implications: addictions, tobacco control, psychopathology, brain disorders, drug treatments)
Behavioral cardiology
(Implications: cardiovascular diseases, stroke, hypertension, comorbidity)
Social Networks and the spread of vectors of disease
(Implications: Natural and human disasters, viruses like AIDS or pandemic flu, social and cultural movements, adoption of fads and fashions that alter dietary habits or physical activity)
(C). Research on the development of systems models and procedures for measurement, analysis, and classification
Research on the development of integrative systems models, as well as procedures for improving on or developing new measurement, methodologies, analysis, and classification. These activities involve the development and refinement of procedures for measuring and analyzing behavior, psychological functioning, or the social environment. This research is designed to develop research tools that could be used in other areas of behavioral and social sciences or in biomedical, social-ecological research or their interaction. Basic sciences will also advance theories or conceptual and pragmatic models by testing existing theory or developing and validation new theories or models.
Examples of research topics in this area include:
- Systems-focused approaches to understanding health, health care delivery and health policy.
- Basic mechanisms underlying efficient dissemination, implementation, community-based participatory interventions, and health services delivery strategies
- Information technologies
- Statistical modeling techniques
- Memory assessment
- Behavioral observation procedures
- Psychometric analysis self-report instruments
- Qualitative and ethnographic methods
- Neuropsychological assessment
- Psychophysiological methods
- Pain Assessment
- Instruments for determining dietary intake and physical activity
- Assessment of medical adherence
II. Clinical Research
Clinical research in the behavioral and social sciences is designed to predict or influence health outcomes, risks, or protective factors. It is also concerned with the impact of illness or risk for illness on behavioral or social functioning.
Clinical research is divided into five categories: (A) research on the identification and understanding of behavioral and social risk and protective factors associated with the onset and course of illness, and with health conditions; (B) research on the effects of illness or physical condition on behavioral and social functioning; (C) treatment outcomes research; (D) research on health promotion and disease prevention; and (E) research on institutional and organizational influences on health.
(A). Research on the identification and understanding of behavioral and social risk and protective factors associated with the onset and course of illness, and with health conditions examines the association of specific behavioral and social factors with mental and physical health outcomes, and the mechanisms that explain these associations. It is concerned with behavioral and social factors that may be health-damaging (risk factors) or health-promoting (protective factors).
Examples of research topics in area include the study of such risk and protective factors as: smoking, dietary practices, physical inactivity, stress, substance abuse, social support, cultural practices, and socioeconomic status.
(B). Research on the effects of illness or physical condition on behavioral and social functioning includes such areas as: Psychological and social consequences of genetic testing; behavioral correlates of head injury across developmental stages; emotional and social consequences of HIV infection or cancer; coping responses associated with chronic pain syndromes; effects of illness on economic status; and coping with loss of function due to disability.
(C). Treatment outcomes research involves the design and evaluation of behavioral and social interventions to treat mental and physical illnesses, or interventions designed to ameliorate the effects of illness on behavioral or social functioning. This area also includes research on behavioral and social rehabilitation procedures.
Examples of research topics in this area include: Cognitive or behavioral interventions for anxiety disorders and depression; strategies to reduce arthritis pain; interventions for restoring behavioral and brain functioning following head injury; lifestyle (dietary change, exercise, stress reduction) approaches to reversing coronary atherosclerosis; procedures to enhance adherence to medical interventions.
(D). Research on health promotion and disease prevention involves the design, implementation, and evaluation of behavioral and social interventions to prevent the occurrence, recurrence, or progression of illness, symptoms, risk factors, or health problems. Health promotion also consists of evaluating procedures that facilitate optimal health functioning.
Examples of research topics in this area include: the design and evaluation of programs to discourage adolescent smoking; approaches to increase physical activity in the elderly; interventions to alter dietary intake to promote health; family interventions to prevent injuries in children; mass media interventions to promote health knowledge; and promoting the use of condoms to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
(E). Research on institutional and organizational influences on health includes studies of the organization of and access to health care, its effectiveness in real world settings (e.g. health services research), its cost efficiency, and its social and cultural acceptability. It also involves research on macro-economic phenomena (e.g. business cycles), community and neighborhood organization and the structure and functioning of families, and how these variables influence the consumption and choice of health care, and decision-making concerning health procedures. Finally, this category includes research on how successful approaches to the organization and delivery of health services can be translated into public policy.
Examples of research topics in this area include: the impact of providing inpatient smokers with information and brief counseling from nursing staff; the accessibility of rural dental health care facilities for migrant workers; the cost-effectiveness of occupational safety interventions; the use of schools as sites for the delivery of mental health services; the effects of capitation on health care utilization; the effects of ethnicity and gender on referral for mental health services; and the association of health provider behavior to patient adherence to medical treatments.
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