Behavioral Medicine and the Health of Our Nation: Accelerating Our Impact

Abstract

A key goal of this paper is to illustrate the impact of behavioral medicine on the factors that influence population health. A second goal is to consider the delicate balance between relevance and excellence as we bring our science to bear on important social and public health problems. If we are to increase the translation of our evidence and accelerate our impact, we must increase our relevance while maintaining excellence in our scientific methods. What are the pressing questions facing those that we would like to use our work, and how we can increase our relevance to theirs? We must work on the marriage of relevance and excellence–use rigorous methodologies, but be flexible in our approach, using study designs and methods that will get rapid yet rigorous answers to the questions that are facing practice and policy settings. We have the tools and the knowledge to impact the health of our nation.