The Columbia University Science of Behavior Change (SOBC) Resource and Coordinating Center (RCC) has been highly successful in coordinating SOBC research efforts, developing digital tools to promote the experimental medicine approach, and disseminating SOBC research practices and products. We now propose to expand on the tools we have developed, to create novel opportunities for basic and applied/clinical science to converge on mechanisms of behavior change. Further, we will continue to serve as a hub for scientists within and outside the SOBC Network to collect, organize, evaluate, discuss, and disseminate rigorous behavioral science. In close collaboration with NIH and the SOBC Network we will: -Expand the SOBC Measures Repository to include both intervention materials and measures of behavioral outcomes?alongside measures of mechanisms. Open the Repository for curation by all scientists, and promote self-sustaining user engagement through delivery of digital tools to (a) organize constructs into visual taxonomies and (b) leverage systematic review data to identify novel opportunities for mechanistic research. Rapidly test and optimize Repository tools and features. -Bring basic and applied/clinical scientists together to promote discovery and improve measurement tools and practices, through collaboration, research syntheses, and support of pilot research. -Conduct outreach and dissemination of the SOBC experimental medicine approach and mechanistic research broadly, through drafting and disseminating best practice guidelines, and developing tools for incorporating and communicating mechanisms-focused research. We will also continue to create engaging conference workshops, webinars, educational video/web/podcast content, and engage with national and international scientific organizations through meetings and joint communications. -Integrate SOBC with related efforts, and detail the role of SOBC/early phase mechanism-focused optimization in the ORBIT framework, NIH Stage Model, and the RE-AIM model. -Conduct systematic reviews and/or meta-analyses of the behavior change literature, to test the impact of applying the experimental medicine approach on research products, and to identify additional potential targets for future validation or research. The SOBC program has begun a profound shift in how behavioral scientists think about behavior change. Over the past 5 years, we played a key role in shaping the SOBC message and building tools to help researchers apply it. Now we propose to ensure its lasting impact by making those tools more rigorous, intuitive, and usable?and by making them accessible to the broader field. Our goal is to make the case for behavioral science to adopt the experimental medicine approach by showing that it improves research impact, and by making adoption so simple that it becomes the default approach.
We propose to continue our work?to lead, participate in, and support activities that will maximize the creativity, productivity, scientific rigor, and dissemination of SOBC products and approaches to meaningfully impact health behaviors. Our team created the first generation SOBC website and Measures Repository, and we have developed an innovative and impactful plan for expanding and improving upon those tools, to facilitate adoption of the experimental medicine approach and collaboration between basic and applied scientists. We also propose innovative scientific outreach and dissemination approaches, with deliverables that we will translate directly into tools for use by the broader scientific community.
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