TY - JOUR
T1 - Precision health
T2 - The role of the social and behavioral sciences in advancing the vision
AU - Hekler, Eric
AU - Tiro, Jasmin A.
AU - Hunter, Christine M.
AU - Nebeker, Camille
N1 - Funding Information:
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, the National Institutes of Health, or the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. This manuscript grew out of a debate that occurred at the Society of Behavioral Medicine's annual conference in 2017. The authors thank the Theories and Techniques in Behavior Change Interventions SIG for organizing the event and for Dr. Alex Rothman for providing support on organizing the paper. The authors also thank Dr. Jerry Suls for meaningful review and contribution to earlier drafts of this manuscript as well as Drs. Kevin Patrick and Susan Michie for informing this manuscript. Thank you, also, to Drs. Coleen McBride and Matthew Kreuter, for reviewing a draft of this manuscript and providing feedback. Tiro supported by the National Cancer Institute (2P30CA142543-08). E.H., C.N., and C.M.H., have no financial support to disclose.
Publisher Copyright:
© The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society of Behavioral Medicine. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. For commercial re-use, please contact journals.permissions@oup.com
PY - 2020/11/1
Y1 - 2020/11/1
N2 - Background In 2015, Collins and Varmus articulated a vision for precision medicine emphasizing molecular characterization of illness to identify actionable biomarkers to support individualized treatment. Researchers have argued for a broader conceptualization, precision health. Precision health is an ambitious conceptualization of health, which includes dynamic linkages between research and practice as well as medicine, population health, and public health. The goal is a unified approach to match a full range of promotion, prevention, diagnostic, and treatment interventions to fundamental and actionable determinants of health; to not just address symptoms, but to directly target genetic, biological, environmental, and social and behavioral determinants of health. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the role of social and behavioral sciences within precision health. Main body Recent technologies, research frameworks, and methods are enabling new approaches to measure, intervene, and conduct social and behavioral science research. These approaches support three opportunities in precision health that the social and behavioral sciences could colead including: (a) developing interventions that continuously “tune” to each person's evolving needs; (b) enhancing and accelerating links between research and practice; and (c) studying mechanisms of change in real-world contexts. There are three challenges for precision health: (a) methods of knowledge organization and curation; (b) ethical conduct of research; and (c) equitable implementation of precision health. Conclusions Precision health requires active coleadership from social and behavioral scientists. Prior work and evidence firmly demonstrate why the social and behavioral sciences should colead with regard to three opportunity and three challenge areas.
AB - Background In 2015, Collins and Varmus articulated a vision for precision medicine emphasizing molecular characterization of illness to identify actionable biomarkers to support individualized treatment. Researchers have argued for a broader conceptualization, precision health. Precision health is an ambitious conceptualization of health, which includes dynamic linkages between research and practice as well as medicine, population health, and public health. The goal is a unified approach to match a full range of promotion, prevention, diagnostic, and treatment interventions to fundamental and actionable determinants of health; to not just address symptoms, but to directly target genetic, biological, environmental, and social and behavioral determinants of health. Purpose The purpose of this paper is to elucidate the role of social and behavioral sciences within precision health. Main body Recent technologies, research frameworks, and methods are enabling new approaches to measure, intervene, and conduct social and behavioral science research. These approaches support three opportunities in precision health that the social and behavioral sciences could colead including: (a) developing interventions that continuously “tune” to each person's evolving needs; (b) enhancing and accelerating links between research and practice; and (c) studying mechanisms of change in real-world contexts. There are three challenges for precision health: (a) methods of knowledge organization and curation; (b) ethical conduct of research; and (c) equitable implementation of precision health. Conclusions Precision health requires active coleadership from social and behavioral scientists. Prior work and evidence firmly demonstrate why the social and behavioral sciences should colead with regard to three opportunity and three challenge areas.
KW - Implementation science
KW - Precision health
KW - Precision medicine
KW - Research ethics
KW - Research methods
KW - Social and behavioral sciences
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U2 - 10.1093/abm/kaaa018
DO - 10.1093/abm/kaaa018
M3 - Article
C2 - 32338719
AN - SCOPUS:85089946584
SN - 0883-6612
VL - 54
SP - 805
EP - 826
JO - Annals of Behavioral Medicine
JF - Annals of Behavioral Medicine
IS - 11
ER -