Economic benefits of international collaborations in behavioral & social sciences

The World Health Organization defines chronic diseases as having a long duration and slow progression.  Chronic disease take a devastating toll on humanity as assessed by mortality data (e.g., 60% of all deaths) but also in terms of disability and lost productivity.  Eighty percent of all chronic disease occurs in low and middle income countries and young people and women are particularly vulnerable. Social and behavioral factors play a significant role in the etiology and course of chronic disease.  Given the overwhelming health priorities of low and middle income countries, social and behavioral sciences are frequently lower on the list of funding priorities.  Hence, despite the critical role social and behavioral factors play in the health and economics of low and middle income countries, research on etiological contributors and preventive programs that target social and behavioral factors is slow or non-existent.  Hence the evidence-base required to build a public health workforce trained to prevent and minimize the impact of chronic disease is lacking.  Additionally, the public health workforce that does exist is inadequate both in training and productivity.  One potential mechanism of increasing the evidence-base and creating and enhancing the already existing public health workforce may be through international collaborations.  International collaborations play an important role – conceptually and pragmatically - in creating and sustaining programmatic research on social and behavioral factors as highlighted in a recent report of the National Academy of the Sciences.  The presentation will focus on highlighting the importance of international collaborations in behavioral and social sciences.  These collaborations will help build a public health workforce in low and middle income countries to ameliorate the impact of chronic disease.