Mission

The mission of the Biobehavioral Research Center (BRC) is to conduct interdisciplinary scientific inquiry and professional mentoring to develop scholarship in an innovative area of research. Biobehavioral research examines the relationships among scientific factors, human behavior and health status. The interface of biological, psychological, social, medical, and nursing sciences is by nature interdisciplinary and has an aim to study complex life processes in humans and/or animals. Biobehavioral research, as translational inquiry, moves research from bench, exploratory, or experimental models to clinical and community applications.

Our interdisciplinary research Center is composed of scientists representing diverse disciplines who employ a variety of methods within qualitative and quantitative paradigms of inquiry in a variety of environments including community, clinical, and laboratory settings. The faculty, plan, develop, conduct and disseminate grant-supported research in collaboration with the public, academic, and larger research communities.

Goals

• Describe, explain and predict the relationship among biological, psychological, and social factors, human behavior responses and health status as the foundation for generating new interventions;
• Integrate biological and behavioral instrumentation and state-of-the-art methodologies to study individual and environmental risk factors;
• Test treatment options aimed at managing bio-behavioral responses and risk related to primary, secondary and tertiary disease prevention;
• Explain the impact of interventions and/or relationships between genetic and biological characteristics and human response to risk factors or interventions;
• Develop partnerships among communities of scholars to conduct cutting-edge research;
• Offer opportunities for mentoring in research programs to fellows, graduate, and undergraduate students;
• Mentor faculty in the School of Nursing and visiting faculty; and
• Sponsor workshops, symposia and other means of disseminating research findings to the community of scholars and the public.