FACILITATOR: Norman Anderson hopes to integrate behavioral and social sciences into NIH's behavioral research.
Norman B. Anderson, 39, an associate professor of psychiatry and psychology at Duke University, has been named by National Institutes of Health director Harold Varmus to head the new Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), effective July 1. The purpose of OBSSR is to promote and coordinate research at NIH into the role of various nonphysiological factors in health.

Anderson is founding director of Duke's program on health, behavior, and aging in black Americans; a senior fellow at the university's Center for the Study of Aging and Human Development; and a research psychologist in the geriatric research, education, and clinical center at the Durham, N.C., Veterans Affairs Medical Center.

Anderson's NIH position, which is in the office of the agency's director, carries the title of associate director for behavioral and social sciences research....

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