Sylvie Naar is on a mission to train the next generation of researchers in methods for developing behavioral interventions, which could mean the difference between life and death for many people.
That’s not hyperbole: The National Cancer Institute, a division of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), supports that goal with a four-year grant totaling nearly $1 million.
Naar is director of the Center for Translational Behavioral Sciences at Florida State University, which focuses on translating research findings into patient treatment. She is the principal investigator for the grant project and is passionate about the subject.
“It is estimated that 40% of premature deaths are attributable to preventable behavioral factors, such as smoking, alcohol consumption, sexual risk, poor diet and sedentary lifestyle, which have been linked to chronic diseases such as diabetes. cancer, cardiovascular disease and diabetes,” said Naar, a distinguished and endowed professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences and Social Medicine in the FSU School of Medicine. “Accelerating the development and optimization of treatments to improve health behaviors is an urgent public health priority.”
Until now, much of the research has focused on the design of traditional clinical trials. Naar will create a course that teaches rigorous and replicable new methods for early-stage behavioral intervention for cancer prevention and treatment.
“The last decade has seen significant advances in innovative methodologies to translate into new and more powerful behavioral treatments,” he said. “Using a variety of methods to answer focused questions promotes creativity, prevents early abandonment or premature testing of a method’s efficacy, and encourages optimization.”
Jeffrey Joyce, senior associate dean for research and graduate programs at the School of Medicine, said the need for training in methods for rigorous research of early-stage behavioral interventions is critical to truly impacting chronic disease.
“The importance of training cannot be overstated, and Dr. Naar has been at the forefront of the science of behavioral interventions,” he said. “This will have a lasting impact on the future of behavioral research and implementation.”
The researchers will use the ORBIT model for the development of behavioral treatments. The model was originally used to study obesity in adolescents in South Carolina, hence its acronym, Obesity-Related Behavioral Intervention Trials.
ORBIT is a flexible and progressive process that uses pre-specified clinically significant milestones for advancement and a return to earlier stages for refinement and optimization if that is what is needed. Naar developed the model with the NIH and was part of the obesity research team who first coded ORBIT and the team who researched expanding its use for the treatment of chronic diseases and illnesses. She has also co-authored many other research projects using the method.
Each year of this study, 25 fellows from multiple disciplines will be selected for a six-month course that teaches a variety of skill-enhancing methods and techniques to foster more effective collaboration across the research spectrum. Fellows will include emerging researchers in behavioral interventions and established researchers looking to expand their focus.
Fellows will have substantial minority representation to ensure that the project team is training researchers who reflect medically underserved populations to improve health disparities. The course will be a combination of in-person workshops and bi-monthly webinars, and frequent assessment will contribute to the ongoing development and refinement of the curriculum.
“The hope is that this can become an annual conference, a self-sustaining entity,” Naar said. “I want to train the next generation of scientists in this domain.”