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in this issue...
 Friends of NIAAA Sponsor Treatment Briefing
National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Seeks Input on Long-Range Plan
APA Psychologist at Forefront of Juvenile Justice Reform
NIMH Seeks Candidates for Two Top Positions
President Extends Authorization of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NSF Searches for New Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division Director
NICHD Examines Role of Animals in Child Development
Friends of NIAAA Sponsor Treatment Briefing
On October 8, Science GRO staff organized the second in a series of educational briefings for Capitol Hill staff on behalf of the Friends of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The briefing, co-sponsored by twenty scientific societies and patient advocacy groups and entitled "Alcoholism Isn't What It Used to Be: New Findings Foreshadow Shifts in Treatment Strategies," was designed to provide an update on the breadth of NIAAA's treatment research portfolio; evaluate new and promising areas of behavioral research that could lead to new treatment approaches; and explore how both psychological and pharmacological treatments might be better tailored to meet the needs of patients with a wide spectrum of alcohol use disorders.
APA Fellow and Friends of NIAAA coalition Chair, Dr. Carlo DiClemente, provided introductory remarks and took the opportunity to recognize NIAAA Director Ting-Kai Li's retirement with the presentation of the Friends of NIAAA Leadership Award "for six years of outstanding leadership and stewardship of the nation's premiere research Institute dedicated to understanding the relationship between alcohol use disorders and health." The event drew a standing room only crowd of 113 attendees representing 36 House Member offices, 6 Senate Member offices, 2 Congressional Committees, a variety of Executive Branch agencies and various national scientific societies and patient advocacy/provider groups. The day before the briefing, Science GRO staff arranged for delivery of a copy of the revised treatment guidelines to every House and Senate office to ensure that even those who couldn't attend the briefing would be informed about advances in NIAAA funded treatment research.
The Friends of NIAAA are grateful to all who participated in the briefing, and their individual presentations can be viewed by clicking on their names here: Ting-Kai Li, MD, Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Kenneth J. Sher, PhD, Curators' Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri, and Mark Willenbring, MD, Director of the Treatment and Recovery Research Division of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
Click here to view pictures from the briefing.
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National Institute of Arthritis, Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) Seeks Input on Long-Range Plan
Calling all scientists who are funded by NIAMS or who conduct research on health that impacts management of chronic disease: NIAMS is seeking your input as it develops its next long-range plan (2010 – 2014).
NIAMS is asking for input via its website. Among the several questions posed to those who comment are:
- List the most significant research advances during the past five years;
- List the greatest challenges to research progress and the potential options for overcoming these challenges;
- List the most pressing scientific and training needs; and
- Describe what gaps in training have delayed progress in critical research areas.
APA requests that if you comment on the strategic plan, you please share your comments with the Science Government Relations Office to help inform our advocacy on NIH issues and APA's own comments on the plan. The deadline for comment is November 7, 2008. Comments may be submitted at the NIAMS website. NIAMS's current long-range plan specifies behavioral research as an important cross-cutting area. It says:
Behavioral and social factors are involved in numerous ways in the onset, course and outcomes of chronic diseases. These factors are central in the experience of symptoms (such as pain and fatigue), disease-related distress, and coping with chronic disease, disability and, to varying extents, the success of prevention and treatment approaches. In addition, interactions between the immune and central nervous systems may be relevant to autoimmune diseases within the NIAMS mission but have not been well-studied.
Purely biomedical approaches are not sufficient to understand and optimally manage the chronic diseases within our mission. Interdisciplinary research that integrates behavioral and biomedical sciences is likely to result in enhanced management of these diseases and reduced disability, and may shed light on the complex mechanisms involved in these disease processes.
While not one of the larger NIH institutes, NIAMS has an active program of behavioral research. According to NIH statistics, NIAMS is estimated to spend $20.3 million on behavioral and social sciences research in Fiscal Year 2008 and $4.6 million on basic behavioral and social sciences research in the same period.
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APA Psychologist at Forefront of Juvenile Justice Reform
On October 15, a slate of panelists, including researchers, policy advisors, and advocates, gathered to discuss juvenile justice reform and the differences between adolescent and adult offenders. The latest volume of The Future of Children journal, "Juvenile Justice," published by Brookings and Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School, was also released at the event.
Laurence Steinberg, PhD (APA Fellow, current President of APA's Division 7 and Professor of Psychology at Temple University), opened the event by providing an overview of the issue, focusing on the fact that emerging social science research has shown that adolescents lack the emotional and mental maturity of adults and therefore should not be treated as adults in the system. He said that although reforms have been implemented in the past two decades that ignore adolescent development issues, there has recently been a shift away from the "get tough" policies; more moderate policies are coming to the forefront as legislators begin to consider high economic costs and the ineffectiveness of punitive approaches. Nonetheless, Dr. Steinberg explained that there was still a great deal of work to be done to ensure that policymakers are aware of the research that exists and are using it to inform their decisions. Following his introduction, the forum continued with two panels that discussed various reforms, one of which Dr. Steinberg moderated.
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NIMH Seeks Candidates for Two Top Positions
NIMH is seeking exceptional candidates for the positions of Deputy Director and Associate Director for Special Populations, both housed in the Office of the Director. Please click here to view announcements for the positions.
The current Deputy Director of NIMH, Dr. Richard Nakamura, has been selected as the next Scientific Director of the Institute and will lead the Intramural Research Program.
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President Extends Authorization of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
President Bush signed into law last week legislation that authorizes funding for NASA for FY 2009. The legislation authorizes $20.2 billion for the agency, about $2.6 billion over the President's FY 2009 budget request. The authorized level includes $853,400,000 for NASA's Aeronautics program, home to aviation safety and human factors research. We first reported on this in June when the U.S. House of Representatives passed its version of the bill, H.R. 6063. The Senate passed similar legislation, S. 3270, in August, and sent it back to the House for a quick reconciliation. The two chambers passed agreed-upon legislation at the end of September and sent it to the President for his signature.
But an authorization is just the first step in the funding allocation process. Next, both House and Senate appropriations committees will consider whether/how much NASA should receive. SGRO staff will continue to work with appropriations staff in both chambers when Congress reconvenes.
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NSF Searches for New Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division Director
APA has been asked for assistance in identifying potential candidates for the position of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS) Division Director within the National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate. NSF considers the BCS Division Director a key member of the SBE Directorate leadership team who can "provide leadership and direction for the support of research to develop and advance scientific knowledge about humans spanning areas of inquiry including brain and behavior, language and culture, origins and evolution, and geography and the environment." The outgoing Director also is looking particularly to find a leader who can provide direction for SBE's new emphasis on complexity science and interacting systems in the context of NSF's investment in computationally enabled discovery and innovation (CDI) and contribute to the development of appropriate infrastructure for BCS disciplines.
The Division Director provides overall direction and management to a division that includes a staff of approximately 30 employees and a FY 2008 budget of about $85 million. Information about the BCS Division's mission and programs is provided on its Home Page. This is a Senior Executive Service (SES) position or the Division Director may be assigned under the provisions of the Intergovernmental Personnel Act (IPA). Access the announcement here for information about appointment options as well as qualification requirements and application procedures. The application deadline is December 1, 2008.
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NICHD Examines Role of Animals in Child Development
The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), in partnership with the Mars Corporation, held a workshop in October to bring together researchers from disciplines including psychology, veterinary medicine and sociology to discuss the impact of human-animal interaction (HAI) on child health and development. The Child Development and Behavior Branch convened the workshop given the potential connection of HAI to child development and public health issues, such as childhood obesity, as well as the need for more scientific research and evaluation of currently unproven HAI interventions being used in the field, such as dolphin therapy. This was the first NIH meeting on this topic since the 1987 NIH conference entitled, "The Health Benefits of Pets." At this meeting, participants focused specifically on HAI and child development outcomes and sought to create multidisciplinary collaborations as well as develop a research agenda that would move the field forward with improved methodologies and measures.
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About SPIN
APA's Science Government Relations Office (GRO) wants you to know about the important policy issues that involve psychological science at the national level. The Science GRO staff advocate for psychological science not only with members of Congress, but also with the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Transportation, Veterans Affairs, Education, Justice, and with the National Aeronautics and Space Administration and National Science Foundation. To keep you up-to-date regarding science policy within these agencies and on Capitol Hill, Science GRO staff write various articles and publish them monthly in an electronic newsletter called Science Policy Insider News (SPIN).
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Questions?
If you have any questions regarding SPIN or specific science policy issues, please feel free to contact any of APA's Science GRO staff.
Geoff Mumford, PhD
Assistant Executive Director for Science Policy
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Pat Kobor
Senior Science Policy Analyst
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Heather O'Beirne Kelly, PhD
Senior Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer
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Karen Studwell, JD
Senior Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer
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Elizabeth Hoffman, PhD
Legislative and Federal Affairs Officer
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Science Policy Associate
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Science Website Manager
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Administrative Coordinator
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