As stated in NIH recent press release, five new research networks totalling $3.13 million in funding from the National Institutes of Health have been settled and will allow investigators to advance the study of emotional well-being.

These research networks, funded in part by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and the National Institute on Aging (NIA), are meant to encourage actions such as meetings, conferences, small-scale pilot research, multidisciplinary cross training, and information dissemination among leading scientists across disciplines and institutions.

The networks funded by NCCIH include:

  • Emotional Well-being and Economic Burden Research Network; University of Alabama at Birmingham; Maria Pisu, Ph.D. This project will address research questions pertinent to health care-related financial burden and emotional well-being in real-world contexts and in diverse populations. (Grant U24 AT011310-01; OBSSR and ODP are co-funding partners)
  • Network to Advance the Study of Mechanisms Underlying Mind-Body Interventions and Measurement of Emotional Well-being; University of Connecticut, Storrs; Crystal Park, Ph.D. This project will illuminate the role of emotional well-being in mind and body interventions as both an outcome itself and as a mechanism in improving mental and physical health outcomes. (Grant U24 AT011281-01; NICHD, OBSSR, and ODP are co-funding partners)
  • The Plasticity of Well-being: A Research Network to Define, Measure, and Promote Human Flourishing; University of Wisconsin-Madison; Richard Davidson, Ph.D. This project will advance understanding of how to promote and protect well-being in everyday life, identify the core plastic constituents of emotional well-being, develop robust measures of these constituents at biological, behavioral, and experiential levels of analysis, and characterize the plasticity of these constituents. (Grant U24 AT011289-01; ODP is a co-funding partner)

The networks funded by NIA include:

Advancing Psychosocial & Biobehavioral Approaches to Improve Emotional Well-being; University of California, San Francisco; Elissa Epel, Ph.D. This project will catalyze innovation and progress of mechanistic research on emotional well-being by fostering a scientific community focused on health span across 30 countries, behavioral intervention development, and creation of a measures repository. (Grant U24 AG072699-01)

Network for Emotional Well-being and Brain Aging (NEW Brain Aging); University of Rochester, New York; Feng Lin, Ph.D., R.N. This project will identify and test mechanisms by which brain aging influences emotional well-being and how emotional well-being may impact risk for and progression of Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias in human and experimental models. (Grant U24 AG072701-01)

If you wish to learn more about the NIH networks, please read their press release.