Psychological Sciences Strategic Focusing:

Promoting healthy development in underserved populations

The quest for health is fundamental to the existence and prosperity of humans. This inquiry is especially challenging in our region. Human health sciences therefore should continue to be one of the signature themes to which UC Merced will devote enhanced resources, with a focus (although not exclusively so) on the health of the diverse human populations of the San Joaquin Valley (SJV). In our context, this will engage inter-disciplinary collaboration and synergies among several existing and emerging programs, as shown in FIg. 1.

Because Psychological Sciences (Psy Sci) is foundational for understanding and improving human health, it will continue to play a central role in advancing the human health theme at UCM. It has been established that at least 5% of all preventable causes of death are behavioral. The contributions that Psy Sci will make towards advancing human health will be devoted specifically to Promoting healthy development in underserved populations.

The future of our nation and especially that of the SJV requires advanced behavioral and biobehavioral research with practical and translational value that can support healthy, positive development. This is especially applicable to childhood because health and development are inextricably linked in childhood, life-long health evolves from childhood, and childhood is the foundation to sustaining humanity. This requires understanding the micro and macro factors that influence health and well-being over time, including individual cognitive, emotional, and socio developmentin the family, community, and ethnic/cultural context. Critical indicators include a healthy start in early childhood and achievement of success in school, establishment of behavioral habits during adolescence that lay the foundation for health, and effective transition to prosperity in young adulthood. We are especially keen on research that promotes healthy development in the underserved, diverse (e.g., ethnicity, language, economic resources, migration history) population in SJV.

A.  What are the Intellectual Drivers and our UCM Identity?

More generally, Psy Sciaims to understand human behavior and translate that knowledge to improve the human condition. This quest is currently driven by a number of grand challenge research problems. Of relevance to our unifying theme are included: What are the best strategies for analyzing quantitative information about complex human behavior, including the “Big Data” that are increasingly being generated? How can we understand complex relationships, such as dyads, families, organizations, and communities? How do social, environmental, and cultural contexts influence human behavior? How do we improve the inequalities (e.g., in health, well-being, education, prosperity) among groups in our society? How is scientific knowledge best translated into practice to improve the human condition? How can advanced technologies be used for this purpose? How can children’s development, especially in the critical early part of life, be optimized to achieve an adulthood of health, well-being, and productivity? Faculty in Psy Sci collectively apply expertise and conduct research towards all of these questions. How can we integrate information from multiple investigations in a way that can usefully inform policy?

Clear and unique identity

The Psy Sci faculty have purposefully grown three connecting research and training tracks towards the common focus on promoting healthy development (see Fig 2): Developmental, Health and Quantitative Psychology. In addition to collaborating towards our strategic focus, each track also has an identity and the opportunity in short order to achieve national and international leadership. That is Psy Sci will achieve distinction, even the leadership position, within a few years when measured against programs anywhere in the world before 2020 in these areas:

Health Psychology track explores how mind, body, and behavior together influence health and illness and use this information to improve well-being and curedisease. Health psychology is a rare track at other research universities. In California, only UCLA has a similar program, but with which we are already approaching in size. Ours is the only PhD program with a strong focus on health issues in the SJV region, which provides an excellent laboratory to understand health processes and interventions that can be generalized to the U.S. population emerging in this century. With 4-5 more FTEs with strategically focused expertise, UCM will claim the strongest Health Psychology research and training program outside of a medical school in the world.

Quantitative Psychology creates the methods researchers use to gather and analyze data to advance the frontier of behavioral sciences by bringing theoretical statistics towards solving previously unsolved statistical and design problems. This track undergirds the application of cutting-edge methods applied to advancing our strategic focus. Moreover, all empirical scientific disciplines require access to quantitative analysis expertise, making this program central to other advances at UCM. This track has particular expertise in Bayesian statistics, one of the cutting edge areas in statistics today that can produce more accurate results for complex statistical models and situations where only small samples are available. Bayesian statistics is currently a desired area of research for federal agencies (e.g., IES). Few other research universities feature this expertise. With 4-5 more FTEs with strategically focused expertise, UCM will achieve true national prominence by 2020.

Developmental Psychology explores changes in how individuals think about and interact with the world around them from conception through adolescence, using a variety of innovative methods. Whereas this is a more common track at research universities (e.g., it is established at all UCs except UCSF), our developmental track aims for national prominence in areas pertinent to promoting healthy development in underserved populations. With a gain of 5 faculty with strategically focused expertise, this program will achieve national prominence in its niche by 2020.

Interdisciplinary collaboration

The psychological sciences is one of 7 "hub sciences" (Boyack, 2005) identified through bibilometric analysis because it “produces knowledge that is central to and widely used by other discipline.” As a hub science, psychological sciences is inherently inter-disciplinary. Our facultycollaborate broadly across disciplines, locally at UC Merced as well as at many other institutions in the U.S. and aboard. Almost all research conducted in Psy Sci is collaborative and interdisciplinary.

Moreover, Psy Sci faculty have been and continue to be leaders in developing interdisciplinary collaborations at UC Merced. For example, Psy Sci faculty : † Led the formation of HSRI, culminating in this becoming the first ORU here to result from faculty initiative, and 3 of its identified clusters are chaired by Psy Sci faculty. † Secured the 1.3 million NIH grant that established the Center of Excellence on Health Disparities, which engaged about 15 faculty and funded about 30 GR and UG students from all 3 schools and many disciplines.† Founded the Public Health program, which now enrolls many UG and an initial cohort of PhD students. † Are currently developing the interdisciplinary Center for Statistical and Quantitative Research (CeQR) in collaboration with 27 faculty in SSHA, SNS and SE, responding to the need across disciplines for access to quantitative expertise and education. Also being developed are minor curricula in Quantitative Analysis for both UG and GR students in all schools. † Led the formation of the Resource Center for Community Engaged Scholarship, which supports faculty and GR students from all schools in collaborative research with community partners to address regional concerns.

Thus Psy Sci faculty have demonstrated experience and success in growing interdisciplinary programs and research that arguably meets or exceeds that of any other group at UC Merced.

Relationships with other UCM research areas

Because Psy Sci is a hub science, several other areas at UCM have already been engaged by Psy Sci faculty. Faculty collaborate with Public Health, HSRI and its research clusters, Applied Math, Political Science, Cognitive and Information Sciences, Biology, EECS, and SNRI. Discussions are underway as well with Sociology, Economics, and Management.

Other research areas or resources that are not yet (well) developed here, but which would benefit the quest to understand human behavior and translate that knowledge to improve the human condition include: Statistics or a Statistical Consulting Center, Survey Research Center, Education Research Institute, and an Early Childhood Education Center that can explicitly support child development research.

Funding

Reflecting its central importance, research towards promoting healthy development is funded by multiple federal agencies, including: NIH, NSF, CDC, Institute of Education Sciences (IES), and the Department of Defense, including DARPA. Numerous state programs and foundations do likewise, including: the Tobacco-Related Diseases Research Program, the California Breast Cancer Research Program, The California Endowment, the California HealthCare Foundation, and the California Wellness Foundation. In addition, many human behavior research programs, especially those focused on improving the human condition, will be highly attractive to philanthropic organizations and private parties, especially in the areas of health, child development, and education.

B.  What resources, including Project 2020 can help you realize your Vision?

1. Behavioral labs. Key will be additional behavioral research lab space on campus in relation to growth in faculty. All Psy Sci faculty at competing research universities expect a dedicated lab space (400-800 sqft). Several of these labs need to be configured as “damp” space in addition to two “wet” labs for future biobehavioral health research.
2. Community/mobile labs. To optimize research with community participants and partners to promote healthy development, a flexibly designed behavioral research lab space in downtown Merced is strongly desired. This will also contribute to reducing the demand for on-campus lab space. For the same purpose, a mobile lab (e.g., purpose-designed RV equipped for survey, developmental, physiological/biological measurements) to take to research populations in the community/region would be highly useful,
3. IT resources. A range of (improved) IT services are needed to advance human behavior research, including: computer server facility, clustered computer resource (CONDOR), statistics lab for UG and GR students, and computer storage for confidential data (required for much Psy Sci research).  
4. Survey research capabilities. Highly useful would be a Survey Research Center, which could in part focus on survey research addressing regional issues. This will also benefit Sociology, Public Health, Political Sciences, Economics, and Management. Such centers at other research universities also garner money by conducting surveys for external entities.
5. Library resources. Access to the full range of health sciences journals.

C.  Who are our realistic peers and our aspirational peers?

Current national peer programs

Developmental: Is currently underdeveloped (due to faculty turn-over and unsuccessful searches in the past) and do not usefully compare at this time to other research universities with long-standing Developmental programs; Health: UC Riverside, UC Irvine (although neither have PhD program in Health Psych); Quantitative:  UC Davis, UCLA.

Aspirational peers

Developmental: Stanford U, U Minnesota, UC Davis; Health:  U Iowa, U Miami, U Utah, UCLA (all large academic medical schools); Quantitative: U Notre Dame, Ohio State, UNC-CH.

The advantages that these programs have include: Long history, sizable total Psy Sci faculty, dedicated support staff, non-TA GR student support, internal research funds, endowment specific to department/program, Department status with budget and authority, multiple interdisciplinary ORUs of benefit to one or more areas of Psy Sci, statistical consultation center, survey research center, and other schools of relevance (e.g., Medicine, Public Health, Education)

D. How do we meet important Campus Metrics?

GR students

The Psy Sci Grad Grp currently enroll 37 GR students, which makes it 2^nd largest at UCM and accounts for 10% of the total GR enrollment. Yet Psy Sci accounted for 23% of the total GR credit hour production (2012-13), by far larger than any other Grad Grp. About 33% of GR students in Psy Sci represent diversity of interest to the UC, and 4 have been awarded university fellowships in campus-wide competition. There is a large pool applying to our CCGA approved PhD program, including more qualified applicants than can be admitted each year. In 2012, 3 PhDs were awarded and 3-5 more are expected during the upcoming Carnegie evaluation period. Psy Sci faculty mentor on average 3.3 GR students.

UG students

Psy Sci accounted for 13% of the total UG credit hour production (2012-13), the largest of any academic unit bar none and 14% (n = 705) of all declared majors (including double majors; Fall 2013). The Psy Sci minor is the largest on campus by far. In addition, faculty provided 62 UG students with significant research experiences in their labs in 2012. Enrollment in Psy Sci courses and its major has grown consistently throughout the past 6 years, unabated with the growth of other majors. Therefore, projecting from this basis indicates that Psy Sci will serve about 1,260 majors in 2020 in a 9,000 UG population.

Establish UCM metrics more comparable to other UCs

Research productivity by faculty in Psy Sci at UCM is already comparable to that of other UCs, especially when adjusting for the unusual skew here towards junior faculty. In 2012, faculty published an average of 7+ items (peer review journal articles, books/chapters/national reports, conference proceedings). Each faculty mentors an average of 3.3 GR students. Faculty held external grants in 2012 totaling over $11 million in total costs, and submitted 15 new external grant applications, requesting $8.9 million dollars in new funding.

Psy Sci UG credit hour production is heavily dependent on non-ladder rank faculty for instruction, currently at 79% of total. Likewise, there are a large number of UG majors to serve, resulting in a very poor ratio of ladder-rank faculty-to-UG-majors compared to other SSHA disciplines and UC standards. To correct the underserved UG curriculum and majors in Psy Sci will require an additional allotment of ladder-rank faculty positions beyond “normal” growth, without which the imbalance will be perpetuated or worsened. In addition 3 LSOEs will significantly help meeting the large demands for our GE courses (e.g., PSY1, PSY10).

Therefore to bring the ratio of UG majors per faculty to a 50:1, which is still well above the average at UCM not to mention the UC system, will require a ladder-rank faculty in Psy Sci of 25 by 2020. A significant benefit from this projected growth is that the GR program will grow substantially, with resulting growth in research productivity.  Maintaining a ratio of faculty-to-GR student mentoring of 1:3.3, will result in a GR enrollment in 2020 of about 82 and produce about 16-18 PhD degrees per year in the Psy Sci Grad Group.

Psy Sci Is an Excellent Investment

Psy Sci has also proven to be an excellent investment for advancing research, GR training, and UG education at UCM. Psy Sci faculty:

• Are highly productive in research
• Secure large grant funding
• Mentor a large group of quality PhD students
• Sponsor important and large undergraduate education programs
• Provide significant leadership at UC Merced, especially in developing interdisciplinary programs