Behavioral Oncology Education and Career Development

描述（由申请人提供）：行为肿瘤学旨在通过识别和促进可以降低癌症风险、早期发现癌症和提高癌症诊断后生活质量的行为，为癌症预防和控制做出贡献。1996年，美国国家癌症研究所召集了一个工作组来评估行为肿瘤学研究的现状和未来方向。工作组注意到，行为研究对癌症预防和控制工作作出了重大贡献，但仍然存在许多机遇和挑战。为了维持这一领域的科学进步，工作组得出结论，为行为科学家提供创新培训补助金将特别重要。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Behavioral oncology seeks to contribute to cancer prevention and control by identifying and promoting behaviors that can lead to reductions in cancer risk, earlier detection of cancer, and improved quality of life following cancer diagnosis. In 1996, the National Cancer Institute convened a working group to assess the current status and future directions of research in behavioral oncology. The working group observed that behavioral research had made significant contributions to cancer prevention and control efforts, but that many opportunities and challenges remained. In order to sustain scientific progress in this area, the working group concluded that innovative training grants for behavioral scientists would be especially important. We are seeking funding to develop and implement a curriculum dependent program that will train postdoctoral candidates in cancer research settings that are highly inter-disciplinary and collaborative. Our program focuses on training cancer scientists in behavioral oncology research, a field that clearly requires training in collaborative and inter-disciplinary settings. The proposed program builds upon extensive and productive collaborations among University of South Florida and Moffitt Cancer Center researchers in behavioral science, population science, epidemiology, biostatistics, nutrition, nursing, medicine, as well as cancer prevention and control. In order to achieve the stated educational and career objectives, we have designed a program that features leadership by an established group of senior investigators, the development and implementation of a specialized curriculum not otherwise available at our institution, numerous inter-disciplinary research environments, and training committees comprised of a minimum of three mentors per trainee. The specific objectives of the proposal are: 1) to establish a postdoctoral training program in behavioral oncology research using the faculty and resources of the University of South Florida and the Moffitt Cancer Center; 2) to recruit promising trainees committed to careers as researchers in behavioral oncology; and 3) to provide these trainees with the didactic and research experiences need to become successful independent investigators in behavioral oncology.