Behavioral Medicine: Department of Preventive Medicine: Feinberg School of Medicine: Northwestern University

Behavioral Medicine

Behavioral medicine is an interdisciplinary field that integrates behavioral, psychosocial, biomedical, and data sciences to understand health, mental health, and illness. In translating science into practice, behavioral medicine uses a variety of techniques (cognitive behavior therapy, mindfulness and medication, biofeedback, positive psychology and others) to improve health and mental health. Much of the research in the Division of Behavioral Medicine is exploring at how to use technologies such as web and phone apps, sensors, and data analytics to facilitate access to behavioral health treatments.

The Division of Behavioral Medicine is a multidisciplinary group of scientists, including psychology, computer science, human-computer interaction, and communications, who work collaboratively to design, evaluate, and implement innovative behavioral medicine interventions to treat and prevent health and mental health conditions.”

David C Mohr, PhD

News

Remote Weight-Loss Method Helped Slash Pounds
Read about the new Northwestern Opt-IN remote weight loss program that slashed pounds . You can also read the full publication here. For more information and to express an interest in signing up, visit the Opt-IN program website.

Study Finds Financial Incentives for Low-Risk Clinical Trials are Ethical
Read more about the new Northwestern study on the ethics of financial incentives for research participation.

What We Do

Education

The NCI training grant is a full-time T32 postdoctoral research training program in behavioral and psychosocial aspects of cancer prevention and control funded by the National Cancer Institute. The training program is based in the division of Behavioral Medicine in Preventive Medicine and in Medical Social Sciences.

The division serves as the base of learning resources in interdisciplinary team science. Resources include the Team Science online learning modules and the team science graduate course in the MSCI program. This course offers practical guidance about how best to engage in team science to pursue complex science questions, work effectively with team members and produce high-impact research outcomes that help meet society’s needs

Learning resources for are also developed and housed in the division.

Research

Major research funding for the Department of Preventive Medicine’s Division of Behavioral Medicine has been awarded by the National Cancer Institute, American Cancer Society, American Heart Society, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institute of Child and Health Development, National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute and the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, alongside other federal and private institutions.

Visit our faculty's lab pages to learn more:

Studies Now Recruiting Participants

Meet Our Team

Brian L Hitsman, PhD

I am committed to advancing the treatment of tobacco use and dependence, especially in primary care and specialty care settings. My research is rooted in rigorous psychological theory and the neurobiology of addiction, and integrates multiple approaches, ranging from human laboratory to clinical trial to epidemiological. I direct the new Center for Nicotine and Tobacco Research within the Cancer Survivorship Institute. In addition to my research and clinical activities, I devote substantial time to training undergraduates, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows.

David C Mohr, PhD

Dr. Mohr received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Arizona. He was on the faculty at the University of California, San Francisco from 1994 to 2006, when he moved to join the Department of Preventive Medicine at Northwestern University. He is the founder and director of the Center for Behavioral Intervention Technologies (CBITs). Dr. Mohr has been elected as a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and of the Society for Behavioral Medicine.

Siobhan M Phillips, PhD, MPH

Dr. Phillip’s interdisciplinary research is focused on understanding the determinants and outcomes of physical activity participation, designing and optimizing innovative and effective behavior change interventions and translating this research into practice with a particular focus on aging and cancer survivorship. Dr. Phillips is a behavioral interventionist by training and has worked with data from prospective, cohort and national datasets. She has training and expertise in designing, conducting and analyzing randomized exercise interventions to maximize adherence and cognitive, psychosocial and physical functioning health outcomes in older adults and clinical populations and in using accelerometers to objectively measure physical activity.

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Contact Us

Behavioral Medicine

680 N. Lake Shore Dr.
Suite 1400
Chicago, IL 60611 (Map it)

Phone: 312-503-6585