The Role of Social Sciences in Public Health

Opening Statement By Chairman Brian Baird

Good morning and welcome to this Research and Science Education Subcommittee hearing on the role that social, behavioral and economic sciences play in improving our Nation’s health and well being and reducing the economic burden of health care.  This happens to be the very last scheduled hearing before the Science and Technology Committee this year.  It seems fitting, as we are in the midst of a heated campaign season in which skyrocketing health care costs are a hot topic, that we highlight an aspect of health care that gets too little attention from the research and medical communities and government alike: prevention.

We have a health care system that discourages doctors from spending time on preventative care.  I don’t think this Committee is going to solve that problem.  But we will look today at the choices that individuals make, and what researchers know about how and why we make those choices and how public policy might be shaped to help influence those choices to the benefit of both ourselves and society.

Each of us decides whether to smoke, to exercise, to cook at home or stop at the nearest fast food joint.  Most if not all of us in this room are pretty lucky.  We are blessed with a good education, good health insurance and a well-paying job.  We have all of the tools and resources we need to make the healthy choice every time, but we still engage in unhealthy behaviors.  Access to information and resources is not the sum of what influences our decisions.

Take smoking.  After decades of an aggressive public anti-smoking campaign, the overall rate of smoking in the U.S. decreased by one-half to 21 percent.  I imagine there are few teenagers in the U.S. who haven’t had it drilled into them that smoking can kill.  Yet, according to the CDC, each day approximately 4,000 kids between the ages of 12 and 17 years initiate cigarette smoking.  Social, behavioral and economics research did and continues to shape effective anti-smoking policies and to provide insight into why some efforts have fallen short.  This is first and foremost about the health and well being of individual Americans.  But it is also about the cost to our society.  Smoking alone can be blamed for approximately $165 billion per year in health care and disability costs.

Of course our health is not governed entirely by our behavior.  Even those of us with the healthiest habits can be struck by a physical or mental illness that requires treatment.  How do we respond to such challenges?  Do we have the tools, and do our doctors have the tools to help us combat depression for example, whether it comes on out of the blue or in response to a major illness or trauma?  They say a healthy body makes a healthy mind.  The inverse is equally true.  Yet it is only in the last decade or two that researchers are seriously exploring the mind-body connection.  Another important and recent advance is that increasingly, clinicians, biologists and behavioral scientists are joining forces to answer the question: how do genes and environment interact, rather than making it an either/or proposition.

The panel before us is engaged in some exciting work, ranging from very basic research on emotions to design of theory-based interventions to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS.  I thank all of the witnesses for being here this morning and I look forward to your testimony.

Witnesses

Panel

1 - Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett
Professor of Psychology Boston College Boston College
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2 - Dr. John B. Jemmott III
Professor of Communication, Annenberg School of Communication University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania
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3 - Dr. Donald S. Kenkel
Professor of Policy Analysis and Management College of Human Ecology, Cornell University College of Human Ecology, Cornell University
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4 - Dr. Harold Koenig
Director of the Center for Theology, Spirituality and Health Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences; Associate Professor of Medicine Duke University Pr
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5 - Dr. David B. Abrams
Executive Director, The Steven A. Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies American Legacy Foundation American Legacy Foundation
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