Social and Behavioral Sciences
Behavioral and social sciences research has a major and explicit focus
on the understanding of behavioral or social processes and/or patterns,
or on the use of these processes and/or patterns to predict of influence
health outcomes or health risk factors. “Behavioral” refers
to overt actions; to underlying individual psychological processes such
as cognition, emotion, temperament, and motivation; and to biobehavioral
interactions. The term “social” encompasses sociocultural,
socioeconomic, and sociodemographic status; to biosocial interactions;
and to the various levels of social context from small groups to complex
cultural systems and societal influences. Social and Behavioral research
may focus on prevention and/or care. Research findings may have implications
for policy, social changes and systems changes.
Disciplines supporting such research include psychology, sociology, anthropology,
demography, public health, epidemiology, medicine, etc.
Clinical Sciences
Clinical research is intended to understand the effects of medical treatments
or methods on disease progression, the effects of medical treatments or
methods on prevention or the effects of medical treatments or methods
on diagnosis in patients. Such research includes therapeutic interventions,
preventive vaccines, and testing of new technologies, often in a clinical
trial format. Clinical research is research conducted with human subjects
(or on material of human origin such as tissues, specimens and cognitive
phenomena linked to medical treatments or methods) for which an investigator
(or colleague) directly interacts with the study participants. Excluded
from this definition are in vitro studies that utilize human tissues that
cannot be linked to a living individual.
Disciplines supporting such research include medicine, infectious diseases,
pharmacology, clinical immunology and others
Basic Biomedical Sciences
Basic biomedical research involves laboratory studies aimed at understanding
the underlying mechanisms of disease at the cellular or subcellular level,
or laboratory studies aimed at understanding the mechanism of action or
optimization of treatments by conducting research at the cellular or subcellular
level. For this purpose, basic biomedical research excludes clinical research
conducted with human subjects or on material of human origin for which
an investigator directly interacts with human subjects and includes in
vitro studies that utilize human tissues that cannot be linked to a living
individual.
Disciplines supporting such research include biochemistry, molecular biology,
cell biology, microbiology including virology, immunology, structural
biology, organic chemistry and others. Also included in this category
is the development of novel therapeutics including novel drug development
and gene therapy development, and the development of novel diagnostics.
Systems of Prevention and Care
Research on systems of prevention and care encompasses both basic and applied studies that examine access, availability, utilization, costs, quality, delivery, organization, policy and financing related to organizations and service delivery systems. This research is intended to produce new knowledge that can be applied to improve prevention and care services for affected persons and populations.Disciplines supporting such research include health economics, organizational psychology, policy analysis, systems analysis, epidemiology, sociology, demography, medicine, and public health, et cetera.
