文章基本信息

标题：Social Science and Health Research: Growth at the National Institutes of Health
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作者：Christine A. Bachrach ; Ronald P. Abeles
期刊名称：American journal of public health
印刷版ISSN：0090-0036
出版年度：2004
卷号：94
期号：1
页码：22-28
语种：English
出版社：American Public Health Association
摘要：Programs within the National Institutes of Health (NIH) have recently taken steps to enhance social science contributions to health research. A June 2000 conference convened by the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research highlighted the role of the social sciences in health research and developed an agenda for advancing such research. The conference and agenda underscored the importance of research on basic social scientific concepts and constructs, basic social science research on the etiology of health and illness, and the application of basic social science constructs in health services, treatment, and prevention research. Recent activities at NIH suggest a growing commitment to social science research and its integration into interdisciplinary multilevel studies of health. THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF Health (NIH) has had a long and growing commitment to behavioral and social scientific research relevant to health. Although this commitment at times has been tenuous and even perhaps reluctant, it has grown in magnitude and strength over the past 30 years. In fiscal year 2002, about $2.64 billion (10% of the NIH total budget) was devoted to behavioral and social sciences research and training. Almost all NIH institutes and centers have played a role. For example, following President Lyndon Johnson’s call in the 1960s to apply research to the alleviation of social and public health problems, the National Institute of Mental Health established various topical research centers to focus on issues such as crime and delinquency, suicide, metropolitan problems, mental health and aging, minority group mental health, and substance abuse and alcoholism. During the 1960s and 1970s the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute developed a pioneering extramural program on health and behavior, and the National Institute on Child Health and Human Development and the National Institute on Aging (NIA) both established broad-ranging programs in support of basic and applied behavioral and social research. Other institutes, including the former constituent parts of the Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration (ADAMHA), also played significant roles in fostering such research. For example, ADAMHA joined forces with NIH in 1979 to commission the landmark study by the Institute of Medicine (Health and Behavior: Frontiers of Research in the Biobehavioral Sciences) that subsequently gave direction to NIH’s expanding activities in the behavioral and social sciences, especially when ADAMHA rejoined NIH more than a decade ago. 1 Historically, the behavioral sciences have been better represented than the social sciences at NIH. By the late 1990s, the behavioral sciences were generally recognized as having a firm place at NIH. However, many observers within and outside of NIH believed that the actual and potential contributions of the social sciences had not yet been fully recognized. Consequently, the NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) convened a committee, with representatives from most NIH institutes and centers and from 3 nongovernmental social science organizations, to consider the contributions of the social sciences to health research and the relevance of various social science concepts, theories, and methodologies as well as to identify examples of successes in and challenges to effectively integrating these elements in health research. Out of these discussions developed a major conference on social science contributions to health research. David Takeuchi and Christine Bachrach chaired the conference, Towards Higher Levels of Analysis: Progress and Promise in Research on the Social and Cultural Dimensions of Health (“Levels of Analysis conference”), which was held in June 2000. Its purposes were to highlight the past and potential future contributions of the social sciences to health research and to generate a forward-looking research agenda. Eighteen months later, based on the conference, 15 NIH institutes and centers issued a joint program announcement on the social and cultural dimensions of health. 2