[#DIV28SUPER] Requesting your expertise and Input on the proposed NIH OBSSR Strategic Plan 2023-2028 by Nov. 7th

Dear Division 28 Colleagues:

 

First, let me thank you for your important contributions to the APA response to the recent NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health RFI updating the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Research on the Health of Women. Please know that your input is greatly valued by the Advocacy staff. NIH requests for information are important. The responses are used to assist the agency in establishing priorities and identifying needs and gaps. And we have yet another opportunity to provide critical feedback!

 

The NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) is seeking input on scientific priorities and cross-cutting themes for its OBSSR Strategic Plan 2023-2028 (NOT-OD-22-211). APA plans to provide a response. Accordingly, I am again seeking your input on any or all of the proposed draft priorities and themes to inform the APA response. OBSSR’s current strategic plan is available here. Reflecting the Office’s coordinating role, OBSSR notes that the themes and priorities are not specific to any given diseases or conditions. The proposed scientific priorities and themes for the OBSSR Strategic Plan 2023-2028 include:

Three scientific priorities:

1.     Improve the synergy between basic BSSR and research testing approaches to improve health outcomes

• Objective 1.1: Identify and encourage promising and ecologically valid basic BSSR relevant to health.
• Objective 1.2: Facilitate the translation of basic BSSR into research applying this knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.

2.     Enhance and promote research measures, methods, and infrastructure needed to support an integrated and more cumulative approach to BSSR

• Objective 2.1: Support the development, testing, and application of data collection and measurement approaches that are rigorous, reproducible, and replicable.
• Objective 2.2: Facilitate the development and testing of new approaches to measurement with an emphasis on enhanced data quality, harmonization, and sharing.
• Objective 2.3: Expand the repertoire and use of innovative and new research methods in the behavioral and social sciences.

3.     Accelerate sustained adoption of BSSR findings in practice

• Objective 3.1: Encourage intervention research and implementation science to understand and test mechanisms of action and effectiveness in context (e.g., tested in the intended populations, delivery modalities and settings).
• Objective 3.2: Enhance the adoption, scalability, and sustainability of evidence-based behavioral and social interventions.

Four cross-cutting themes:

1. Integration of BSSR across NIH research - Facilitate multiple aspects of BSSR integration and team science across the NIH research enterprise that may include, but is not limited to, integration across disciplines, diseases, and the translational continuum.
2. Science of Science - Facilitate multiple aspects of BSSR integration and team science across the NIH research enterprise that may include, but is not limited to, integration across disciplines, diseases, and the translational continuum.
3. Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) - Facilitate multiple aspects of BSSR integration and team science across the NIH research enterprise that may include, but is not limited to, integration across disciplines, diseases, and the translational continuum.
4. Training and capacity building - Facilitate multiple aspects of BSSR integration and team science across the NIH research enterprise that may include, but is not limited to, integration across disciplines, diseases, and the translational continuum.

Please share any comments you have any part of the RFI electronically via this web form by November 7, 2022, or via email to Angela Sharpe (asharpe@apa.org).

Your input is valued! We are grateful your assistance and having the benefit of your expertise.

 

All the best,

Angela

 

Angela L. Sharpe, MG (she, her, hers)
Senior Director, Congressional & Federal Relations

Scientific Affairs Advocacy
Email: asharpe@apa.org  | Tel: (202) 336-5688

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