Roll Call, the influential newspaper that covers Congress, published an op-ed Dec. 2 co-written by an APA policy analyst urging Congress to fund more behavioral research. “Behavioral and social factors are responsible for more than 50 percent of the preventable injuries, illness and deaths in our nation,” wrote APA’s Patricia Clem Kobor with Angela L. Sharpe. “The National Institutes of Health cannot neglect research on these factors if it is to improve our nation’s health.”
Kobor is senior science policy analyst with APA’s Science Directorate and Sharpe is deputy director of the Consortium of Social Science Associations. They co-chair the Coalition to Promote Research, a group created to battle attacks on peer-reviewed research. “To the misfortune of the American public, [politicians] are overlooking and minimizing the value and utility of social and behavioral science research,” the op-ed says. “The business of government, including Congress, is to support its citizens and solve problems. Social and behavioral science research has critical tools that can help accomplish these goals.”
Every issue, 11,500 copies of Roll Call are delivered to Congress and 400 copies are delivered to the White House free of charge.