Advocacy Archive

Testimony on the FY 2006 Budget of the National Institutes of Health by the American Psychological Society

Alan G. Kraut, Ph.D, Executive Director

Summary of Recommendations

  • As a member of the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research Funding, APS recommends $30 billion for NIH in FY 2006.
  • APS requests Committee support for increased behavioral and social science research and training at NIH in order to: better meet the Nation's health needs, many of which are behavioral in nature; realize the exciting scientific opportunities in behavioral and social science research, and; accommodate the changing nature of science, in which new fields and new frontiers of inquiry are rapidly emerging.
  • Committee support is requested for specific behavioral science activities at a number of individual institutes. This statement provides examples to illustrate the exciting and important behavioral and social science work being supported at NIH.

Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee: The American Psychological Society is a nonprofit organization dedicated to the promotion, protection, and advancement of the interests of scientifically oriented psychology in research, application, teaching, and the improvement of human welfare. Our 16,000 members are scientists and educators at the Nation's universities and colleges.

On behalf of our members, I would like to thank you for your leadership in the bipartisan effort to double NIH budget. As a result, NIH has experienced a period of unparalleled growth in the past 5 years, and the progress achieved as a result of research funded by NIH will lead us into a new era of discovery and innovation. Unfortunately, that progress is threatened by the Administration's request for FY 2006, which at only .7% (or $196 million) over FY2005 will not even cover the costs of inflation, never mind sustain and advance the nation's investment in NIH. As a member of the Ad Hoc Group for Medical Research Funding, APS recommends $30 billion for NIH in FY 2006, an increase of 6% over FY 2005 funding levels. This increase would help provide a stable base of funding for the Nation's public health research enterprise and allow NIH to continue its important scientific pursuits.

Within the NIH budget, APS is particularly focused upon the behavioral and social science research activities of NIH.

The Importance of Behavioral Research in Addressing the Nation's Health

In any realistic picture of our Nation's health, a core finding is that behavior is central to many, maybe to most of our Nation's leading health concerns: heart disease; stroke; lung disease and certain cancers; obesity; AIDS, suicide; teen pregnancy, drug abuse and addiction, depression and other mental illnesses; neurological disorders; alcoholism; violence; injuries and accidents -- all have large behavioral components. Further, nearly 40% of premature deaths in the U.S. can be attributed to smoking, physical inactivity, poor diet, or alcohol misuse according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

None of the conditions or diseases described above can be fully understood without an awareness of the behavioral and psychological factors involved in causing, treating and preventing them. For example, before you address how to change attitudes and behaviors around AIDS, you need to know how attitudes develop and change in the first place. Or, before you can change decisions about any risky behavior, you need to know how judgments and decisions are made on a range of topics. Similarly, before you address memory decline in the elderly, you need to know the basics of learning and memory and how that changes with age. And before you address the complexity of the interactions among genetics, the brain, and schizophrenia, you need to know the basics of cognition, emotion, culture, behavioral aspects of neuroscience, and behavioral genetics.

APS members include thousands of scientists who, with NIH support, conduct basic, applied, and clinical research related to physical and mental health at our Nation's leading universities and colleges. Virtually every institute at NIH supports some amount of psychological science. Examples include: The connections between the brain and behavior; research into how children grow and develop; management of debilitating chronic conditions such as diabetes and arthritis as well as mental disorders; and the behavioral aspects of smoking and drug and alcohol abuse, so that science may find ways for people to escape addiction.

NIH Director Dr. Elias Zerhouni, has expressed strong support for behavioral science at NIH, and sees this research as critical to our Nation's health. “We are aware of the challenge in social and behavioral science. It's going to be front and center,� he has stated. He went on to add, “The bill for the nation will be unbearable in health and social costs without recognition of the role of behavior.� However, to date, behavioral research has not received the recognition or support needed to reverse the effects of behavior-based health problems in this Nation.

APS asks that you continue to help make behavioral research more of a priority at NIH, both by providing maximum funding for those institutes where behavioral science is a core activity, by encouraging NIH to advance a model of health that includes behavior in deciding its scientific priorities, and by encouraging the establishment of a stable infrastructure to support basic behavioral science research at NIH.

Basic Behavioral Science Research Needs a Stable Infrastructure

Twenty-four of the 27 institutes at NIH fund behavioral science research, and seven institutes commit over $100 million to this enterprise. Six institutes commit over 20 percent of their resources to behavioral science research. However, most of these institutes do not fund research into the fundamental behavioral processes that underlie the diseases and conditions that constitute some of the most vexing health problems facing us today. Traditionally, such basic behavioral research has been supported by the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). NIMH, for any number of historical reasons, has been the home for far more basic behavioral science than any other institute. Many basic behavioral and social questions were being supported by NIMH, even if their answers also could be applied to other institutes. Recently, NIMH has begun to aggressively reduce its support for many areas of the most basic behavioral research, saying that, like many other Institutes, it too is disease specific and must focus its energy on battling mental illness through translational and clinical research. This means that previously funded areas now are not being supported.

NIMH is to be commended for promoting the transfer of knowledge into application for mental illness. But this is happening at the expense of critical basic behavioral research. Without progress in our understanding of fundamental behavioral processes, there will not be a sufficient body of knowledge to translate into application. Until other institutes begin to support larger amounts of basic behavioral science research connected to their respective missions, it is essential that NIMH's programs of research in behavioral phenomena such as cognition, emotion, psychopathology, perception, development, and others continue to flourish. APS asks the Committee to encourage NIMH's continued efforts to strengthen the ties between basic and clinical behavioral research, and to encourage NIMH's basic behavioral science portfolio in order to ensure continued progress in our understanding of the causes, treatment and prevention of mental illness and the promotion of mental health.

NIGMS Should Support Basic Behavioral Science Research and Training

Answering basic social and behavioral science questions is central to the overall NIH mission. The recent change at NIMH regarding basic behavioral research illustrates the problem of depending too much on non-structural support at any one agency for fundamental behavioral and social science research. Basic behavioral and social science needs a dependable structure of its own.

The most appropriate location is the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS), also known as NIH's "basic research institute". NIGMS already has a mandate to support basic behavioral research and training, but that mandate has not been fulfilled in part because NIMH already was serving that function.

Since FY 1999, this Committee has repeatedly issued report language urging NIGMS to fund basic behavioral research and training, saying, for example: "The Committee is concerned that NIGMS does not support behavioral science research training. As the only Institute mandated to support research not targeted to specific diseases or disorders, there is a range of basic behavioral research and training that NIGMS could be supporting. The Committee urges NIGMS, in consultation with the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences, to develop a plan for pursuing the most promising research topics in this area." [Senate FY2000 Appropriations Report 106-166, Senate FY2001 Appropriations Report 107-293, Senate FY2002 Appropriations Report 107-84, Senate FY2003 Appropriations Report 107-216, Senate FY2004 Appropriations Report 108-82]

Two years ago, Senators Specter, Inouye, and Harkin, engaged in a colloquy on the Senate floor expressing the Committee's strong support for basic behavioral research and training, and expressing their concern that NIH had not responded to this matter after many years of report language. Since then, NIH commissioned a task force to study the matter and report back to the Director's Advisory Committee. The panel formally recommended the establishment of a secure and stable home for basic behavioral science research and training at an NIH institute, and, in particular, suggested that an institute such as NIGMS should be that home, as this Committee has recommended for years.

NIGMS is on record saying except for a few fields of inquiry, behavioral studies largely fall outside of its research mission, and are instead deemed to be within the missions of other institutes at the National Institutes of Health. And APS believes this line of thinking may still hold true within NIGMS. However, NIGMS' statutory mandate encompasses "general or basic medical sciences and related natural or behavioral sciences [emphasis added] which have significance for two or more other national research institutes" (TITLE 42, CHAPTER 6A, SUBCHAPTER III, Part C, subpart 11, Sec. 285k)

Basic behavioral research in the cognitive, psychological and social processes underlying substance abuse and addiction (significance for NIDA, NIAAA, NCI and NHLBI), obesity (significance for NIDDK, NHLBI, and NICHD) and the connections between the brain and behavior (significance for NIMH, NINDS, and NHGRI) just to name a few, all are within the NIGMS mission. Given the statutory mandate, the recommendations of a recent Director's advisory council's task force, the strong Congressional interest, the scientific imperative, and most important, the health needs of the Nation, APS asks the Committee to direct NIGMS to develop a plan for establishing a basic behavioral science research and training program at NIGMS.

NIH Needs a Comprehensive Behavioral Science Research Training Strategy

The outcomes of science are unpredictable. Yet there is one aspect of science where the time and money invested is guaranteed to pay off: the training of our future scientists. We know that if we provide support now for a young investigator, we will have a well-trained, highly-qualified scientist as a result. This is a serious issue in behavioral science at NIH, where the demand for behavioral science investigators at NCI, NIMH, and other institutes outpaces the current supply of behavioral science researchers. In order to meet the future needs of research in health and behavior, NIH must have a comprehensive training strategy in place today, one that focuses on training young investigators in the core disciplines of behavioral and social science research as well as in multidisciplinary perspectives.

APS is hopeful that NIH will take a closer look at forthcoming recommendations from a congressionally mandated National Academy of Sciences (NAS) study of research personnel needs with regard to the National Research Service Awards (NRSAs). It is anticipated that this study will be transmitted to Congress and NIH in the near future. When NAS conducted this study in 2000, NIH selectively implemented NAS's recommendations and ignored important findings with regard to the need for increased training, if at all. This Committee has taken note of the behavioral science recommendations from this study in the past, and has supported increasing NRSA awards as a mechanism to increase behavioral science research training. APS asks the Committee to developments closely.

More generally, APS asks the Committee to support the development of a comprehensive training strategy for behavioral and social science research at NIH. This strategy should include all training mechanisms, and should be balanced between interdisciplinary research and traditional core disciplines in the behavioral sciences.

Behavioral Science at Key Institutes

In the remainder of my testimony, I would like to highlight examples of the cutting edge behavioral science research being supported by individual institutes.

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

NIMH is funding behavioral research ranging from neural information processing to social psychology decision-making. Ultimately, this investment will help researchers understand and improve the way people think, plan, and make choices about their future as it relates to everything from chronic mental illness to AIDS. For example, one NIMH study is aimed at identifying how people understand the near future versus the distant future with the hopes of relating study findings to HIV prevention. By investigating how temporal distance from future events influences judgments and decisions regarding those events, researchers hope to identify the advantages and disadvantages of decision-making at different points in time.

An NIMH-funded project is examining the operation of attention at two coarsely defined stages of processing: visual perception and visual working memory. By comparing “memory-intensive� tasks in which working memory is overloaded but the perceptual demands are minimal with “perception-intensive� tasks in which memory is not overloaded but the perceptual demands are great, researchers expect to see attention operate at different stages in these tasks. By developing methods to isolate and assess perceptual-level and working memory-level property mechanisms, researchers will be able to more easily identify attentional mechanisms compromised in a given disorder. This program of research will have important long-term implications for psychological/psychiatric disorders in which attention is compromised, such as attention deficit disorder, many anxiety disorders, even schizophrenia.

Similarly, the NIMH project titled "Executive Processes-Behavioral and Neuroimaging Study" will help scientists better understand the brain mechanisms responsible for so-called "executive" brain functions, such as the ability to stay focused, to multi-task, and to respond with action. Studying these executive processes, which play a central role in cognition, could influence how we look at behavioral and psychological functioning, from the changes that occur over the life span to early diagnosis and treatment of dementia and other conditions involving reduced cognitive capacities.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

By supporting a comprehensive research portfolio that stretches across basic neuroscience, behavior, and genetics, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) is leading the Nation to a better understanding and treatment of drug abuse. APS applauds NIDA for strengthening its efforts to study adolescent brain development to examine the influence drug exposure has on behavioral, psychological, and physiological development. New research supported by NIDA reveals that drug addiction is a "developmental disease" that often starts during the early developmental stages in adolescence, an age at which 3 million 12-17 year olds reported using illicit drugs last year. If we can better understand the effects structural brain changes have on functions like thinking, decision-making, sensation and perception we will be able to better develop targeted and more likely effective prevention strategies from the brain development perspective. APS asks this Committee to support this and other critical behavioral science research at NIDA, and to increase NIDA's budget in proportion to the overall increase at NIH in order to reduce the health, social and economic burden resulting from drug abuse and addiction in this Nation.

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) works to examine the biological, chemical and behavioral factors associated with alcohol abuse and consumption, the third highest cause of preventable death in the U.S. according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Over time, NIAAA has broadened its behavioral science portfolio to understand the underlying psychological and cognitive processes that lead people to drink, and the impact of chronic alcohol abuse on those processes. Today, the institute is stepping up its efforts via its Improving Effectiveness of Treatment initiative to move beyond what we understand about today's behavior therapies and to further understand the mechanisms that determine how and why alcohol-related behavior changes. And since these changes are influenced by neurobiological, psychological and social factors, this new and exciting research includes multiple levels of research to ensure an integrated understanding to improve behavior strategies. APS asks this Committee to support NIAAA's behavioral science research efforts, and to increase NIAAA's budget in proportion to the overall increase at NIH in order to reduce the health, social and economic burden resulting from alcohol abuse and alcohol dependence.

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) is an agency that continues to make enormous advances in the behavioral sciences to achieve effective cancer prevention and control. Since its Behavioral Research Program was launched in 1997, NCI has funded comprehensive behavioral science research programs ranging from basic behavioral science to research on the development, testing and dissemination of disease prevention and health promotion interventions in areas such as tobacco use, diet, and even sun protection. APS applauds NCI's foresight to conduct transdisciplinary research within the program's five branches of Tobacco Control, Cancer Communications, Health Disparities, Energy Balance, and Cancer Survivorship because it set forward a new path for science -- and APS believes disciplines are only made stronger when complimented by others. Take for example the agency's Centers for Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer within the Energy Balance branch. This initiative brings together NCI's investment in diet, weight and physical activity research priorities by bringing together scientists from multiple disciplines to carry out projects ranging from the biology and genetics of energy balance to behavioral, sociocultural and environmental influences on nutrition, physical activity, weight, energy balance and energy transferred to or expended in life processes. In addition to training established scientists, this investment fosters collaboration among transdisciplinary teams. APS asks Congress to support NCI's behavioral science research and training initiatives and to encourage other institutes to use these programs as models.

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

APS is particularly pleased with NIA's dedication to behavioral research through the Behavioral and Social Research (BSR) Program -- and its 3 branches of individual behavior, population and social processes and research resources and development -- that supports basic social and behavioral research and research training by studying the dynamic interplay between individuals' aging; their changing biomedical, social, and physical environments; and multilevel interactions among psychological, physiological, social, and cultural levels. Agency-conducted research like that of the Behavioral and Imaging Approaches to Implicit Memory in Aging study will ultimately make a major contribution to our understanding of age-related changes in memory. As researchers carefully integrate behavioral and neuroimaging studies to broaden and deepen current understanding of age-related changes in implicit memory, they are evaluating decision accuracy in both young and elderly subjects to assess the neural substrates supporting encoding and retrieval of implicit memory. APS asks the Committee to support NIA's behavioral science research efforts and to increase NIA's budget in proportion to the overall increase at NIH in order to continue its high quality research to improve the health and wellbeing of older Americans.

Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)

I'm pleased to report that psychological scientist David Abrams, from Brown University, has been appointed as the Director of the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at NIH. We ask the Committee to join us in welcoming Dr. Abrams to this position, and to support OBSSR in its efforts to achieve a strengthened behavioral science research enterprise at NIH.

It's not possible to highlight all of the worthy behavioral science research programs at NIH. In addition to those reviewed in this statement, many other institutes play a key role in NIH behavioral science research enterprise. These include the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, the National Institute of Nursing Research, and the National Institute for Human Genome Research. Behavioral science is a central part of the mission of these institutes, and their behavioral science programs deserve the Committee's strongest possible support.