President's Message: Moving Behavioral Science Upstream

Bernard Fuemmeler, PhD, MPH, FSBM, SBM President

Wow! The 2023 Annual Meeting and Maycember (that time of the year that seems as hectic personally and professionally as December) are in the rear-view mirror by now. It was indeed a busy couple of months. The 2023 conference was a huge success on many levels: attendance up, zooming down, smiles abound. It was certainly great to connect with colleagues in a place and space like Phoenix – a region of rich cultural history and a city whose name embodies the hope for the future.

With this first of three presidential Outlook messages, I wanted to share a few thoughts about what is important to me and how I plan to weave this into my year as SBM president.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion

Many may not know this from my last name, but I come from both a Hispanic and German-American background with my dad’s side coming from a history of German-Americans who settled in Missouri and my mom’s side being Hispanic with a long history as New Mexicans. As someone from a bi-ethnic family, I have embodied the efforts to be inclusive to both sides of my diverse background. My grandfather on my mother’s side, a World War II veteran, also taught me many life lessons, one of which was to approach everyone first with honor and respect. It’s important to recognize that we all have stories about who we are that both root us to a cultural history and also make us unique. This year, I want to continue to grow our efforts in SBM to recognize that our members come from diverse and unique backgrounds, and that each lived experience is what will make us collectively more vibrant and able to carry that forward into our work of making our society more just, equitable, and healthy. That is why I will be working with our Board to continue to strengthen our strategic plan, which aims to make sure that across all our efforts we pursue strategies that make us a more diverse, equitable, and inclusive professional society.  

Looking Back to Look Forward

As an organization we are coming up on our 45^th year. The field of behavioral medicine has greatly matured over those years and our contributions to psychology and medicine are numerous and vast. This year I would like to take a little time to reflect on some of those contributions that our members have made over the years. I am working with our staff and some members to come up with a way of documenting these accomplishments. One concrete way we will be doing this is through a short podcast series. More details will follow, but I plan to interview some of our long-standing members and others who have contributed to the field, to learn more about how their lived experiences shaped their work, some of the issues that they found most interesting in our field, and where they think we are heading next in the years ahead. Keep your podcast “dialed” to our SBM website for more information to follow.       

Moving Behavioral Science Upstream

As I look toward our 45^th Annual Meeting in Philadelphia, I’m excited to begin thinking about all the ways our members are “thinking upstream;” the ways that policies, institutions, neighborhoods, and communities impact our behavior and health; and how we can go about intervening across multiple levels to affect health for the better. We see how systemic racism, discrimination, and environmental injustice, for example, are related to health, and how it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a recognizable stress-related pathway by which these upstream factors get “under the skin” to affect health and disease. Recognizing the patterns of the multiple ways that upstream factors affect health is important, as is developing multi-level intervention frameworks to address downstream conditions. There are ways in which we as behavioral experts can help advance these efforts. As we have done in the past to address downstream behaviors, we can do the same to address upstream factors. For example, by expanding our theoretical models, bring our expertise in digital health to bear on addressing upstream issues, or by incorporating more rigorous study designs addressing multilevel drivers of health and well-being. I’m looking forward to working with our 2024 Annual Meeting Program Chair Dr. Akilah Dulin and our Planning Committee in putting together an amazing conference centered around these ideas.

In closing, I hope you are able to rest and rejuvenate this summer. Rest, recharge, and then bring your best energy to making our 45^th year a productive one aimed at tackling the big issues—the upstream issues that contribute to our ability to become a healthier and more equitable society. Let’s make our 45^th year our best yet. Maybe you will want to get involved in one of our multiple Special Interest Groups (SIGs), work with one of our committees, or attend some of our upcoming webinars. I look forward to hearing from you throughout the year and seeing you in Philly in 2024.