During the winter of 2004, the Office of the Director of the National Institutes of Health brought together a group of scientists and NIH staff in order to evaluate  the status of basic behavioral sciences at the NIH.  This Workgroup, chaired by Dr. Linda Waite (University of Chicago), was asked to evaluate and discuss research not linked to a particular disease and to ascertain the role of basic behavioral science NIH-wide.  The group met several times throughout 2004, with their work culminating in a final report and presentation to the Director's Advisory Council at the end of the year.

In response to the 2004 release of a special NIH Working Group report on “Research Opportunities in the Basic Behavioral and Social Sciences,” the Federation organized an ad hoc committee of psychological researchers to explore the potential health relevance of basic research.  The Federation group, dubbed “The Committee for the Exploration of Health Relevance in Basic Behavioral Science,” was comprised of these outstanding scientists: 

Peter Balsam (Columbia University & Barnard College)
Mahzarin Banaji (Harvard University)
Sheldon Cohen (Carnegie Mellon University)
Daniel Kahneman (Princeton University)
Jennifer Lerner (Carnegie Mellon University)
James McClelland (Carnegie Mellon University). 

Over several months, they reviewed the work of the NIH-Wide Working Group and provided additional documentation.  In May 2005, they visited some key offices in Washington, including:

Dr. John Marburger (Science Advisor to President Bush and Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy at the White House)
Dr. Jeremy Berg (Director, National Institute of General Medical Sciences)
Dr. Elias Zerhouni (Director, the National Institutes of Health)
Dr. David Abrams (Director – Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research at the NIH). 

After the visits to NIH and OSTP, a subset of our committee visited Capitol Hill to offer information to interested congressional offices and to discuss the status of the basic behavioral sciences given cutbacks in various NIH institutes.

In all of these visits, and in the documentation our committee created, we wanted to be sure the message was clear that much of the work done in basic behavioral sciences is integrally-linked to concerns of human health.   The NIH is a key supporter of our scientists and we work to advocate for the needs and concerns of those scientists.  Especially in these troubling economic times regarding federal budgets, there can never be too much done on that score.

Federation Committee's document on Health-Relevant of Basic Research