Science of Behavior Change (SOBC)

The Science Of Behavior Change (SOBC) is a research network dedicated to promoting basic research on the initiation, personalization, and maintenance of behavior change. SOBC aims to improve the understanding of basic mechanisms of human behavior change across health-related behaviors and to use this understanding to develop more effective behavioral interventions. The SOBC Research Network is funded by the SOBC Common Fund Program in the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

History

SOBC has been an ACTIVE research network since 2009 and is currently in its second stage of research. Research funded during Stage 1 (2009-2014) identified three broad classes of intervention targets highly relevant to the behavior change mechanisms: self-regulation, stress reactivity and stress resilience, and interpersonal and social processes. During Stage 1, SOBC determined the need for reliable and valid ways to measure engaged targets through experimental manipulations or interventions. This measurement focus has been the foundation for the current phase of SOBC research (Stage 2), which began in 2015. SOBC Stage 2 builds on knowledge gained from Stage 1 by investigating the basic mechanisms of behavior change within the three previously identified domains.

Mission

The NIH-funded SOBC Research Network aims to implement a mechanisms-focused, experimental medicine approach to behavior change research and to develop the tools required to implement this plan. The experimental medicine approach involves: identifying an intervention target, developing measures that index the target validly and reliably, modulating the target through experimentation or intervention, and testing the degree to which controlled target modulation produces the desired behavior change.

Significance

Unhealthy behaviors- such as smoking, [...] and alcohol abuse, overeating, and a sedentary lifestyle-contribute to negative health outcomes and common diseases. These behaviors account for approximately 40 percent of the risk associated with preventable premature deaths in the United States. Further, chronic diseases contribute to 7 out of 10 deaths in the United States. Treatment of these diseases account for over 85% of U.S. health costs. Many of these chronic diseases are preventable through simple changes to health behaviors, such as diet, exercise, and medication adherence. Unfortunately, it is extremely difficult to initiate and maintain healthy behavior changes over an extended period of time. The Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Research Network aims to build a network of like-minded scientists that are not only conducting research using this systematic experimental medicine approach, but also sharing it openly, so they can easily appreciate overlaps in their work to produce insights that were not possible before. SOBC supports research that integrates basic and translational science across disciplines.

The SOBC Experimental Medicine Approach and Method

The SOBC program seeks to implement a mechanisms-focused approach to behavior change research and to develop the tools required to implement such an approach. Using the experimental medicine approach, SOBC has developed a common method for understanding behavior change: identify, measure, and influence. First, scientists must identify an appropriate mechanism to investigate using existing behavior change theory. Next, scientists must use or develop tools to reliably measure the identified mechanism. Finally, scientists must determine whether an intervention can reliably change the identified mechanism. If a change in the identified mechanism causes a change in health behavior, then the researcher can be confident that this is a mechanism of behavior change.

One particular health behavior—adherence to medical regimens—provides a particularly compelling test of this approach. Non-adherence to medical regimens is a significant health problem that is an exemplar for the general behavioral intervention goal of initiating and maintaining behavior change.

Network members/contributors

NIH Common Fund programs have goals that resonate with the missions of multiple Institutes, Centers, and Offices at the NIH and its programs are intended to be "transformative, catalytic, synergistic, cross-[...], and unique". NIH staff from more than 15 Institutes, Centers, and Offices are involved in the SOBC Common Fund Program, and several of them are active members of the SOBC Research Network as Program Officials and Project Scientists associated with Network projects.

External links

• Science of Behavior Change Website
• NIH Common Fund's Science of Behavior Change Overview
• Open Science Framework – Science of Behavior Change Research Network
• Center for Open Science
• Association for Psychological Science Observer – The Science of Behavior Change
• Changing Behavior Habits

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