Abstract
As chronic disease has become the major health concern for Americans, the need to develop more relevant research and treatment models for disease prevention and control has led to multidisciplinary investigations of what appear to be multifactorial problems. Such explorations have led to consideration of biobehavioral research designs which emphasize pooling of the unique talents of the biomedical and behavioral research communities, resulting in a “whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.” Implications of this biobehavioral approach to theory, methods, practice and training are discussed.