Search Results: open access
Evidence-Based Policymaking Commission Seeks Input
The Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking, established by a law passed in March 2016, is charged with producing a report that identifies how the government can enhance its use of data and evidence to improve federal programs and policies, to be delivered to the President and Congress within 15 months of the Commission’s formation. As it begins its work, the Commission is seeking input on existing strategies and practices for generating and incorporating data and evidence into policymaking as well as potential challenges it may encounter. The Commission has requested comments on 19 questions across three broad categories: (1) overarching questions,…
White House SBS Team Celebrates One-Year Anniversary
On September 15, the White House’s Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST) celebrated its one-year anniversary. SBST, a group of behavioral scientists within the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), is chaired by the Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). It also includes the participation of federal agencies, departments, and White House offices. The 2016 Social and Behavioral Sciences Team Annual Report cites the progress made by the team in implementing President Obama’s Executive Order 13707, “Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People” (see Update, September 22, 2015). The 2016 report…
NIH Department of Bioethics Fellowship Opportunities Available for Fall 2017
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Department of Bioethics is accepting applications for its fall 2017 fellowship program. The two-year post-doctoral and pre-doctoral fellows engage in the activities and “intellectual life” of the Department, as well as study “ethical issues related to conduct of research, clinical practice, genetics, and health policy.” In addition to having access to educational opportunities at NIH, fellows also have opportunities to participate in weekly bioethics seminars, case conferences, ethics consultations, and IRB deliberations. The application deadline for the post-doctoral fellowship is December 31, 2016 and January 15, 2017 for the pre-doctoral fellowship. To view the…
NIH Seeks Input on Metrics to Assess Value of Biomedical Digital Repositories
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is soliciting the input of the scientific community regarding “metrics to assess the value and impact of biomedical digital data repositories that may provide a basis for technical and science policy actions required to support” repositories’ long-term sustainability. NIH notes that its goal for data management and sharing “is to make publicly-funded data broadly accessible to support reuse, reproducibility and discovery while simultaneously balancing the costs and the benefits.” Accordingly, the agency has issued a request for information (RFI), (NOT-OD-16-133), seeking information on qualitative and quantitative metrics that describe utilization at multiple levels; quality…
National Academies Seeks Comments on Indicators for Undergrad STEM Education
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s (NAS) Board on Science Education (BSE) seeks comments on its draft report, Developing Indicators for Undergraduate STEM Education. An expert panel, the Committee on Developing Indicators for Undergraduate STEM Education, was convened to develop national indicators for monitoring the quality of undergraduate STEM. The Committee proposes “a conceptual framework of goals and objectives for improving the quality of undergraduate STEM.” A two-phase study, the Committee now seeks input as it prepares to develop indicators. A series of questions for consideration can be accessed on BSE’s website. In addition, a one-day public meeting…
NIH Appears Before Senate Appropriations Subcommittee
On April 7, National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins appeared before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education (Labor-HHS), accompanied by five of the NIH’s 27 institute and center directors and/or acting directors. Attending were: Richard Hodes, National Institute on Aging (NIA); Doug Lowy, National Cancer Institute (NCI); Nora Volkow, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA); Walter Koroshetz, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS); and Christopher Austin, National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS).
AHRQ Names New Director
Andrew Bindman, a primary care physician and Professor of Medicine, Health Policy, Epidemiology, and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco, has been named the new director of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) effective May 2, 2016. His research interests focus on primary care and low-income individuals’ access to and quality of health care. Bindman’s previous federal experience includes a fellowship with the House Energy and Commerce Committee and several years as a senior advisor to the Assistant Secretary of Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) Office of Health Policy and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services….
NIH Director Fills Vacancies for PMI Cohort and ECHO Programs
National Institute of Health (NIH) Director Francis Collins recently announced the appointments of Eric Dishman as the Director of the Precision Medicine Initiative (PMI) Cohort Program and Matthew Gillman as the Program Director of the NIH Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO).
NCHS Releases Health, United States 2015
The National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) has released the most recent issue of one of its hallmark publications, Health, United States. The 2015 edition compiles data on the health of the U.S. population, including on mortality and life expectancy, morbidity and risk factors, health insurance coverage, access to and utilization of health care, and health expenditures. This year’s edition also includes a special feature on racial and ethnic health disparities. The full report can be accessed on the NCHS website, as well as the shorter Health, United States, 2015: In Brief. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
National Children’s Study Archive Available to Investigators
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development issued a Notice (NOT-HD-16-005) to alert investigators of the availability of the National Children’s Study (NCS) Vanguard Data and Sample Archive and Access System (NCS Archive). The NCS Vanguard served as a pilot for “a planned cohort study of environmental influences on child health and development.” The Vanguard pilot enrolled more than 14,000 participants in more than 5,000 families in 40 locations and followed them until 2014. It includes a collection of more than “14 million records and nearly 19,000 biological and 5,500 primary samples from which a…
America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-Being, 2015
The Federal Interagency Forum on Child and Family Statistics, a working group of 23 Federal agencies, recently released its annual compendium of indicators, America’s Children: Key National Indicators of Well-being, 2015. The 17th report in an ongoing series includes 41 key indicators “on important aspect of children’s lives” culled from the “most reliable Federal statistics.” The easily understood statistics in the report are “objectively based on substantial research.” The report also reveals trends over time that are “representative of large segments of the population” and include indicators seven domains: “family and social environment, economic circumstances, health care, physical environment and…
Senate HELP Committee Begins Consideration of Companion Legislation to the House 21st Century Cures Act
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Chair of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee, recently announced that the committee will hold the first of three executive sessions to consider legislation to address biomedical innovation. The legislation affects the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The bills would serve as the companion legislation to the 21st Century Cures Act passed by the House last summer (see Update, July 14, 2015). The executive sessions are planned for February 9, March 9, and April 6. Alexander stressed that the Committee worked throughout 2015 to produce the…
Funding Opportunity Announcements
NIFA: Organic Agriculture Research and Extension Initiative (USDA-NIFA-ICGP-005517) AHRQ: Increasing Access to Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT) in Rural Primary Care Practices (R18) (RFA-HS-16-001) NIJ: Research on Measurement of Teen Dating Violence (NIJ-2016-9001) HRSA: Bridging the Word Gap Challenge NIH: Environmental Influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) program NIH: Notice to Extend PAR-13-055 Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (R01) (NOT-CA-16-006) [NCI, NCCIH, NHLBI, NHGRI, NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NICHD, NIDCD, NIDCR, NIDDK, NIDA, NINDS, NIMH, NIMHD, NINR, and OBSSR] NIH: Notice to Extend PAR-13-054 Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (R21) (NOT-CA-16-007) [NIMH, NCI, NHGRI, NIA, NIAAA, NIAID, NICHD, NIDCD, NIDCR, NIDA, NINDS,…
NIH Issues Notice Clarifying its Health Economics Research Priorities
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) issued a Guide Notice on November 25, to “clarify NIH policy related to funding health economics research,” in an effort to delineate NIH’s “priority areas of health economics research as well as reach aims that generally fall outside of the NIH mission.” The notice is part of an ongoing issue that dates back to 2012 Congressional language in the Fiscal Year 2013 Labor, Health and Human Services and Education Appropriations bill that bans the National Institutes of Health (NIH) from supporting economics research. Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) responded to the language, along with 82…
COSSA Members Respond to OBSSR Strategic Plan
Several COSSA member organizations responded to the recent National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) Request for Information (RFI) regarding its 2016-2020 Strategic Plan (see Update, November 3, 2015). In addition to stressing the challenges and opportunities for the behavioral sciences, the groups emphasize the need for continued leadership by OBSSR within NIH and the federal government. Below are highlights from the comments submitted by the American Educational Research Association (AERA), American Psychological Association (APA), the Population Association of America/Association of Population Centers (PAA/APC), and the Society of Behavioral Medicine (SBM).
OBSSR and AHRQ Release Population Health: Behavioral and Social Science Insights
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) and the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) have jointly released, Population Health: Behavioral and Social Science Insights, which details what is known and remaining gaps in research “about the effects of various behavioral and social factors on longevity, disability and illness, and the quality of life, primarily at the population level.”
NIH Associate Director for Data Science Discusses Opportunities and Challenges of Data Science
At the September 1 meeting of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI) Council of Councils, Associate Director for Data Science (ADD) Philip Bourne discussed the opportunities and challenges of data science. Bourne began by asking: “What are we going to do with our data?” He explained that from his point of view, science is at point of significant change as a consequence of the amount of data that is being generated. Biomedical research is becoming more analytical, and scientific change is happening faster than anticipated as a result of faster accumulation of…
CPR Briefing Highlights NIH Peer Review Process
The COSSA-led Coalition to Promote Research (CPR) recently organized its second congressional briefing of 2015 (see Update, March 24, 2015) designed to provide an overview of the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) peer review process for congressional staff. The briefing, NIH Priority Setting: How Peer Review Assists the NIH in Selecting the Best Science, highlighted the process used by the NIH’s Center for Scientific Review (CSR) with the help of scientific experts from around the country. Briefing speakers included CSR director Richard Nakamura and Danielle Li of Harvard University. Felice Levine, executive director of the American Educational Research Association (AERA),…
Census Releases New ACS Estimates
The Census Bureau has released a new set of annual data from the American Community Survey (ACS). The 2014 1-Year estimates provide information for all 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico on the dozens of economic, housing, social, and demographic topics covered by the ACS. The new data can be accessed here. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
White House SBS Team Issues Inaugural Report; President Signs Executive Order
On September 15, President Obama signed an Executive Order calling on federal agencies and departments to use “behavioral science insights” to “design government policies to better serve the American people.” The order comes as the Social and Behavioral Sciences Team (SBST), a team of about a dozen behavioral scientists within the National Science and Technology Council (NSTC), issued its first annual report. SBST was established in 2014 as a mechanism for testing and applying social and behavioral science interventions to make government programs more efficient and more accessible. The team is chaired by the White House Office of Science and…