A staple since COSSA’s earliest days, the biweekly COSSA Washington Update newsletter provides members and the public with comprehensive coverage of policy developments impacting social and behavioral science research.
Policy Roundtable Seminar Focuses on Stimulating Innovation in Government
The National Academies’ Policy Roundtable of the Behavioral and Social Sciences held a seminar on October 30 focused on “Stimulating Effective Innovation in Government.” The Roundtable is chaired by David T. Ellwood of the Harvard Kennedy School and, beginning in 2015, will be directed by Arlene Lee, Director of the Committee on Law and Justice. For more on the Roundtable, see COSSA’s coverage of its last meeting. Roundtable members are government users and producers of social and behavioral science research and behavioral social and scientists who have spent time in the government (the list of members is available on the…
IOM Recommends Including Social/Behavioral Determinants in Electronic Health Records
On November 13, the Institute of Medicine (IOM) released Capturing Social and Behavioral Domains and Measures in Electronic Health Records: Phase 2, which recommends a “concrete approach to including social and behavioral determinants in the clinical context to increase clinical awareness of the patient’s state, broadly considered, and to connect clinical, public health, and community resources for work in concert.” The report’s recommendations takes into consideration the “substantial empirical evidence of the contribution of social and behavioral factors to functional status and the onset, progression, and effective treatment of disease [that] has accumulated over the past four decades.”
APSA Releases Report on Improving Perception of Political Science
The American Political Science Association (APSA), a COSSA governing member, has published a report entitled Improving Public Perceptions of Political Science’s Value. The report was written by a task force chaired by Arthur Lupia, University of Michigan (a member of COSSA’s Board of Directors), charged with identifying ways APSA and its members can better explain to the public, policymakers, and the media the contributions political science makes to society. This project comes in the wake of several high-profile attacks by policymakers on the discipline, notably Sen. Tom Coburn’s successful attempt to restrict funding of political science projects at the National…
COSSA Washington Update, Volume 33 Issue 20
In this issue… Featured News Outcome of Midterm Elections May Not Offer Clarity over FY 2015 Endgame COSSA in Action COSSA Weighs in on National Children’s Study Framework Keep up on COSSA in the news here. Federal Agency & Administration News NSF’s SBE Directorate Seeks to Fill Numerous Leadership Posts Census Bureau Seeks Comment on Proposed Elimination of ACS Questions NIH Makes Awards to Enhance Diversity of the Scientific Workforce OHRP Solicits Comments on Draft Guidance on Risk Disclosure in Research Evaluating Standards of Care CDC Requests Nominations for Board of Scientific Counselors, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response…
COSSA Weighs in on National Children’s Study Framework
On October 26, COSSA sent a letter to the National Children’s Study (NCS) Working Group, a subgroup of the National Institutes of Health Advisory Council to the Director, outlining concerns with the NCS framework and raising other issues for consideration as the working group progresses with its review the program. As the letter states, “the NCS has the potential to become an invaluable resource, yielding new insights into the complex linkages between social, genetic, and environmental factors and how these factors interact to influence health, growth and development across the life course. To ensure the study produces meaningful data, the…
NSF’s SBE Directorate Seeks to Fill Numerous Leadership Posts
The Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate of the National Science Foundation (NSF) is seeking interested applicants for several leadership posts, including directors for two SBE divisions. The open positions include: Division Director, Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), closes December 12 Division Director, Social and Economic Sciences (SES), closes December 12 Program Director in the Economics Program (SES), closes December 29 In addition, NSF recently announced that Joanne Tornow, SBE Deputy Assistant Director, will leave SBE in December to lead the NSF Office of Information and Resource Management (OIRM). A search will commence for a new SBE Deputy Assistant…
Census Bureau Seeks Comment on Proposed Elimination of ACS Questions
On October 31, the U.S. Census Bureau within the Department of Commerce issued a request for public comment related to the 2014 Content Review of the American Community Survey (ACS). According to the Federal Register Notice, the 2014 review “is the most comprehensive effort ever undertaken by the Census Bureau to review content on the survey, seeking to understand which federal programs use the information collected by each question, the justification for each question, and assess how the Census Bureau might reduce respondent burden.” The review looked at the ACS’s 72 questions and proposed removal of seven from the annual…
Outcome of Midterm Elections May Not Offer Clarity over FY 2015 Endgame
The remaining weeks of 2014 could see an effort to pass a sweeping omnibus appropriations bill for fiscal year (FY) 2015, should the Republicans gain control of the Senate after the midterm Congressional elections tomorrow. Even though the Democrats would still control the Senate until January, Republican leaders have stated that under such a scenario they would work during the lame duck session to pass an omnibus, allowing the 114th Congress to start in January with a clean slate. However, such a feat has proven impossible in recent history. For example, the FY 2014 appropriations process was not completed until…
CDC Requests Nominations for Board of Scientific Counselors, Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response
The Board of Scientific Counselors (BSC) for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) Office of Public Health Preparedness and Response (OPHPR) is seeking nominations for new members for terms beginning in October 2015. The Board provides guidance to CDC and OPHPR leadership, conducts peer review of scientific programs, and monitors the overall strategic direction and focus of the Office. According to the notice in the Federal Register, “Nominees will be selected based on expertise in the fields relevant to the issues addressed by the divisions within the coordinating office, including: business, crisis leadership, emergency response and management, engineering,…
National Science Board Launches New STEM Education Resource
On October 28, the National Science Board released a new online resource, STEM Education Resource, where the public can access data on the STEM workforce, including college degrees in STEM fields and jobs in science-related occupations. The interactive tool provides data points, graphics, maps, and other resources to allow users to learn about national trends in STEM, connecting them to the data in the 2014 Science and Engineering Indicators produced by the National Science Board. Check out the tool here. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
NIH: 2015 NIH Director’s Early Independence Awards
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Common Fund recently released its FY 2015 NIH Director’s Early Independence Awards (EIA) funding opportunity announcement (RFA-RM-14-004). The NIH Common Fund supports cross-cutting programs that are expected to have exceptionally high impact. These initiatives invite investigators to develop bold, innovative, and often risky approaches to address problems that may seem intractable or to seize new opportunities that offer the potential for rapid progress. The EIA initiative is designed to allow exceptional junior scientists to accelerate their transition to an independent research career by “skipping” the traditional postdoctoral training. Candidates must be within one year…
Events Calendar
The City: 2014 Behavioral and Social Science Summit, Stanford University, November 8, 2014 Webinar: Producing Government Data with Statistical Confidentiality Controls, American Statistical Association Privacy and Confidentiality Committee, December 17, 2014 A list of COSSA members’ annual meetings can be found on the COSSA website. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
SACHRP Considers Consent in Low-Risk Online Studies
At its meeting on October 30, the Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections (SACHRP) heard a presentation from B.R. Simon Rosser, University of Minnesota School of Public Health, on “The Evolution of Consent in Low-Risk Studies: Lessons from Online Survey Research.” He suggested that SACHRP rethink how researchers handle informed consent for low-risk studies conducted over the internet.
NIMH Creates New Unit to Support Its Research Domain Criteria Initiative
On October 31, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) announced the creation of a new unit designed to reframe mental health research by facilitating communication among scientists, clinicians, and the public. The new unit was established to support the development of the institute’s Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) initiative. According to NIMH, RDoC “attempts to bring the power of modern research approaches in genetics, neuroscience, and behavioral problems of mental illness, studied independently from the classification systems by which patients are currently grouped.” The aim is to accelerate the pace of research that translates basic science into clinical settings “by…
OHRP Solicits Comments on Draft Guidance on Risk Disclosure in Research Evaluating Standards of Care
The Office of Human Research Protections (OHRP) has issued draft guidance on “Disclosing Reasonably Foreseeable Risks in Research Evaluating Standards of Care.” As more and more comparative effectiveness research is conducted to evaluate different treatments commonly used by medical practitioners (“standards of care”), the guidance is an attempt to assist researchers in determining how to disclose potential risks of the different treatments they are studying.
NIH Makes Awards to Enhance Diversity of the Scientific Workforce
On October 22, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced the awarding nearly $31 million in FY 2014 to enhance diversity in the biomedical research workforce. The awards are part of a five-year program and will “support more than 50 awardees and partnering institutions in establishing a national consortium to develop, implement, and evaluate approaches to encourage individuals to start and stay in biomedical research careers.” Twelve of the awards will be supported by the NIH Common Fund and all of the NIH 27 institutes and centers and will be part of three initiatives that form the Enhancing the Diversity…
COSSA Washington Update, Volume 33 Issue 19
In this issue… Federal Agency & Administration News Social Scientist among National Medal of Science Winners SMRB Continues Discussion of Pre-College Engagement in Biomedical Science NCHS Brief Looks at Depression and Obesity Public Comment Period for Healthy People 2020 Open through November 7 Publications & Community Events National Academies SBS Policy Roundtable Seminar, “Stimulating Effective Innovation in Government” — October 30 2015 MCAT Includes New Social and Behavioral Sciences Section Funding Opportunities NSF: RAPID Proposals Sought to Address Ebola Crisis DOD: 2015 Minerva Deadline Extended COSSA Member Spotlight SPSSI Seminar Explores the Psychology of Human Rights Events Calendar View the…
Social Scientist among National Medal of Science Winners
On October 3, President Obama named the winners of the 2014 National Medal of Science and National Medal of Technology and Innovation. Among the recipients of the National Medal of Science is University of Michigan political scientist Robert Axelrod, honored for his work on the “evolution of cooperation,” which holds applications for conflict de-escalation. Dr. Axelrod will be awarded the Medal of Science at a White House ceremony later this year. Back to this issue’s table of contents.
NCHS Brief Looks at Depression and Obesity
A new data brief from the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) examines the relationship between obesity and depression. It found that 43 percent of adults with depression were obese and that adults with depression were more likely to be obese, particularly women. In addition, as the severity of depression symptoms increased, so did the proportion of those with obesity. And over half of people whose symptoms were not relieved by medication were obese. The report observes, “It is not clear whether depression or obesity occurred first because they were both measured at the same time. Other studies have shown…
Public Comment Period for Healthy People 2020 Open through November 7
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is soliciting written comments regarding new objectives proposed to be added to Healthy People 2020. The previous public comment period occurred in fall 2013.