University of Michigan Institute for Social Research Expansion

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DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): In recognition of the critical role that social, psychological, and lifestyle factors (social determinants of health) play in disease onset, progression, and amelioration, the NIH over the last two decades has supported an increasing portfolio of extramural studies on social and behavioral dimensions of health. The Institute for Social Research (ISR) has played a major role in this evolution of social science research on health, and it has at present nearly a quarter of a billion dollars in active NIH supported studies, ranging from small clinical studies, to community interventions, to long-running longitudinal panel studies on large population based samples. In fact, the 20-year Health and Retirement Study (HRS), a major beneficiary of the proposed infrastructure expansion, is the largest single NIH grant at the University of Michigan, a university that ranks among the U.S. leaders in NIH supported bio-medical research. Over this same period, there has been almost a revolution in the nature of health related social and behavioral science research, with the increasing development of more sophisticated theoretical models and hypotheses that include biometric and biological measures and the use of genetic material. This evolution has been furthered by the amazing increase in knowledge propelled by advances in molecular biological technologies, and especially brain sciences. Again the ISR has played a major role in these developments. Studies like the HRS now routinely collect biological and biometric measures, and the interdisciplinary base of ISR's NIH research has evolved to include research physicians, geneticists, epidemiologists, and other health scientists working in concert with psychologists, sociologists, and economists. These changes have resulted in a large expansion of both the type and quantity of research scientists and, simply put, the ISR is fast running out of space. New space must be suited for this new type of social and behavioral science research, storage, and retrieval facilities, as well as for the generation of new scientists that are needed, and are rapidly being hired, to work on this cutting edge of the social determinants (and correlates) of health and diseases. This application requests support to expand physically the ISR to include appropriate spaces for the technical infrastructure needed for the design, collection, and storage and retrieval of human data, as well as the office and meeting room spaces needed to house the growing bio-social and bio-behavioral science workforce at ISR described in the application. The State of Michigan has been particularly hard hit by the national economic downturn. This funding will provide construction employment in the short run, and in the long term the space needed to house the growing new scientific workforce we are currently, and anticipate, hiring over the next 10 years.