Adopted on May 12, 1996

I. The goal of the Behavioral Science Assembly of the American Thoracic Society (ATS) is to facilitate and promote the role of the behavioral and social sciences in lung health. The following specific objectives address this goal.

1. To facilitate interest and knowledge among ATS members concerning behavioral and social factors in lung health and disease.
2. To communicate information on behavioral and social factors in lung health and disease to ATS members and the ALA community, and the lung health, policy making, and research communities.
3. To facilitate and advocate support for research on behavioral and social factors in lung health and disease.
4. To promote state-of-the-art behavioral techniques for lung disease.
5. To address, through research and advocacy, social inequalities in the care of those with lung disease.
6. To advocate for behavioral and social approaches to lung health.

II. The Assembly is concerned with the broad scope of lung diseases and associated behavioral and social determinants, outcomes and co-variate.

III. The Assembly seeks to encourage rigorous approaches to research among behavioral and social scientists and among researchers from other disciplines who study behavioral aspects of lung disease.

IV. The objectives, scope, and methodologies identified with the Assembly lend themselves to many specific research topics. The following topics are of particular interest to members of the Assembly.

1. Trends in behavioral epidemiology associated with lung disease (e.g., smoking, treatment adherence).
2. Behavioral outcomes associated with lung disease (e.g., quality of life).
3. The impact of lung health and behavioral and social science findings on health policy formation (e.g., smoking , provision of health care).
4. The costs of prevention and treatment strategies relative to their benefits and effectiveness.
5. The influence of behavioral, bio-behavioral, social, cultural, and developmental factors on:

a) the etiology of lung disease (e.g., smoking, occupational and environmental exposures, drug abuse, socioeconomic factors, lifestyle);

b) the prevention of lung disease (e.g., health education, risk perception, health-care seeking);

c) the treatment of lung disease (e.g.,health education, treatment adherence, culturally-based beliefs).