Behavioral Science

Welcome to the ATS Behavioral Science Assembly.  Our Assembly represents clinicians and researchers from throughout the world who are interested in behavioral, psychological, social, and economic factors that affect lung health, lung disease and critical illness. This Assembly seeks to understand and improve health behaviors, health outcomes and improve systems of care and reduce health disparities.  Our members have expertise in psychology, adherence to therapy, clinical epidemiology, statistics, health services research, health economics, comparative clinical efficacy and effectiveness research, performance measurement, quality improvement, and implementation science.  We represent a wide variety of clinical interest areas including pulmonary diseases, critical illnesses and sleep-related breathing disorders.

Even though we are among the smaller assemblies, we continue to make major contributions to the  organization. Members of our assembly are prominent leaders, including the Immediate Past ATS President, Dr. J. Randall Curtis. Other prominent roles include Chair and Vice Chair of the Documents Development and Implementation Committee (Dr. J. Krishnan and M. Gould, respectively), Secretary of the Council of Chapter Representatives (Dr. D. Upson), Vice Chair of the Education Committee (Dr. R. Kempaninen), Chair of the Quality Improvement Committee (Dr. R. Mularski), Drug/Device Discovery and Development Committee (Dr. G. Diette) and Chair of the Tobacco Control Committee (Dr. M. Wewers).  Altogether, our members serve on 30 ATS Committees that clearly demonstrates the value of our assembly to the organization. 

Our Assembly is also involved in leading a wide-variety of ATS Projects including the following:  Palliative Management of Crisis Dyspnea led by Dr. Richard Mularski; Pay for Performance in Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine, led by Dr. Jeremy Kahn; The Pharmacoeconomics of Medications for Respiratory Disease led by Dr. Dona Upson; The Effects of Lack of Health Insurance or Race on the Health of Lung Disease Patients led by Dr. Daryl Thorton.  For a small assembly, we have excellent representation in regards to ATS Proposals and Projects.

The Assembly has four standing committees:

The Planning Committee is responsible for developing the long-term strategy of the Behavioral Science Assembly. It is the place where members can have input into future projects and activities. The chair of the Planning Committee is Susan J Bartlett, PhD.

The Program Committee is responsible for organizing the Behavioral Science Assembly Program of the International Conference. Clinical topics, clinical workshops, evening and pre conference postgraduate sessions and the review and organization of presentation of abstracts are the major activities of this committee. The Chair of this committee is Kristin A Riekert, PhD.

The Nominating Committee is responsible for nominating candidates for Chairs of International Program Committee and the Behavioral Science Assembly. The Chair of this committee is TBD.

The Executive Committee provides oversight for all Behavioral Science Assembly functions. It convenes monthly to discuss Assembly issues and to foster the development and integration of all Assembly activities. The chair of the committee is Lynn B. Gerald, PhD, MSPH.

Our Assembly welcomes new members and actively involves new clinicians and scientists.  Please feel free to attend our annual meeting and we welcome you to choose the Behavioral Science Assembly as your primary assembly, or as a secondary assembly. You can designate up to two secondary assemblies, and there is no additional cost when you add a secondary assembly.

Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions about the Behavioral Science Assembly or wish to become involved.

Please send your comments to the BSA Assembly at bsa@thoracic.org.