Key Dates

Related Announcements

• December 18, 2024 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See NOFO PA-25-301.
• December 18, 2024 - NIH Small Research Grant Program (Parent R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See NOFO PA-25-302.
• December 18, 2024 - NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See NOFO PA-25-304.

Issued by

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Purpose

The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to solicit research to identify state and local policies, programs, and strategies that have contributed to reductions in overdose deaths.

Background

The US continues to be in the midst of an overdose crisis, with overdose fatalities increasing from fewer than 17,000 deaths in 1999 to approximately 100,000 deaths nearly 25 years later, peaking in 2022 with almost 108,000 deaths. Recognizing the growing burden of overdose deaths, federal, state, and local jurisdictions have implemented a multitude of diverse efforts to address the overdose crisis. Despite these efforts, overdose deaths have largely continued to increase, and there are substantially more overdose deaths now than there were in 2017, when the opioid crisis was first declared a public health emergency.

Nonetheless, there have been periods of improvement in the crisis, including a decrease in the number of overdose deaths nationally from 2017 to 2018, and again from 2022 to 2023 following dramatic increases in overdose deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic. Further, provisional data indicate that overdose deaths have continued to decrease into 2024. Moreover, there has been variation in drug overdose death rates and trends across jurisdictions and populations over the course of the overdose epidemic.

The purpose of this NOSI is to solicit research to identify specific state and local policies, programs, and strategies that have contributed to population level reductions in overdose deaths, with a goal of identifying successful approaches used by jurisdictions that could be applied more broadly to other jurisdictions to reduce the burden of overdose deaths across the United States.

Priority research areas include, but are not limited to:

• Determining the extent to which specific policies, programs, or strategies or combinations of policies, programs, and strategies have contributed to reductions in overdose deaths
• Identifying the key elements of policies, programs, or strategies that have contributed to reductions in overdose deaths
• Identifying effects and differential effects of specific policies, programs, or strategies in reducing overdose deaths for specific populations, settings, or drugs
• Conducting economic evaluations of overdose prevention policies, programs, or strategies with a focus on overdoses prevented
• Developing tools to support jurisdictions in allocating resources to prevent overdose deaths

Applicants are encouraged to partner with jurisdictions, people with lived or living experience with drug use, and other relevant end users of the research findings at all phases of the research process.  

Application and Submission Information

This notice applies to due dates on or after June 5, 2025 and subsequent receipt dates through May 8, 2028. 

Submit applications for this initiative using one of the following notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) or any reissues of these announcements through the expiration date of this notice.

• PA-25-301 (R01) NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed).
• PA-25-304 (R21) NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed).
• PA-25-302 (R03) NIH Small Research Grant Program (Parent R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed).

All instructions in the How to Apply - Application Guide and the NOFO used for submission must be followed, with the following additions:

• For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-DA-24-057” (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative.

Applications nonresponsive to terms of this NOSI will not be considered for the NOSI initiative.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to the Scientific/Research, Peer Review, and Financial/Grants Management contacts in Section VII of the listed notice of funding opportunity.

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Erin M. Parker, PhD
Commander, U.S. Public Health Service
Division of Epidemiology, Services and Prevention Research
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Telephone: (301) 451-8506
Email: [email protected]