Key milestones during 40 years of behavioral medicine at the National Institutes of Health.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has played a major role in promoting behavioral medicine research over the past 40 years through funding, review, and priority-setting activities and programs including scientific conferences, meetings, workgroups, intramural research, and training opportunities. In this review of NIH activities in support of behavioral medicine over the past four decades, we highlight key events, programs, projects, and milestones that demonstrate the many ways in which the NIH has supported behavioral and social sciences research and advanced the public health while contributing to the evolution of behavioral medicine as a scientific field.