Implementation Science and Women’s Health

When beginning your next investigator-initiated application, consider the following NIH highlighted topic. The area of science described below is of interest to the listed NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs). This is not a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO).

Apply through an appropriate NIH Parent Funding Announcement or another broad NIH opportunity available on Grants.gov. Learn how to interpret and use Highlighted Topics.

Topic Description

Post Date: October 19, 2026

Expiration Date: October 19, 2028

Purpose 

This topic encourages innovative research applying implementation science (IS) concepts and methods to narrow the Know–Do gap in women's health care. Implementation science offers rigorous methods to accelerate the adoption, scale-up, and sustainment of evidence-based interventions in real-world settings, improving their reach, quality, distribution, and long-term impact. 

Background 

Advances in basic, behavioral, and applied sciences have greatly improved the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of diseases and conditions uniquely affecting women. However, several evidence-based interventions remain inaccessible or are inconsistently implemented, resulting in persistent Know–Do gaps between intervention development and routine clinical and public health practice. 

Implementation science provides a practical approach to identify strategies that promote the adoption, integration, adaptation, scale-up, and sustainment of evidence-based interventions across various settings. Applying implementation science throughout the continuum of women's health research will accelerate translation of discoveries into practice, improve healthcare quality and access, enhance health outcomes, and improve care for everyone. As a cross-cutting priority, this approach will strengthen public health impact of biomedical discoveries by ensuring effective interventions are delivered consistently, suitably and sustainably.

Research topics include, but are not limited to:

  • Maternal health, including postpartum hypertension, hemorrhage prevention, care coordination, and postpartum follow-up.
  • Maternal mental health, including implementation of screening, referral, integrated behavioral health, and treatment for perinatal depression and anxiety.
  • Women's mental health and preventive care, including implementation of clinical guidelines and incorporation of pregnancy-related risk factors into cardiovascular care.
  • Reproductive, pelvic, and midlife health, including endometriosis, Polycystic Ovary Syndrome (PCOS)/ Polyendocrine Metabolic Ovarian Syndrome (PMOS), pelvic floor disorders, recurrent Urinary Tract Infections (UTIs), and menopause.
  • Cancer prevention and women's preventive care, breast and cervical cancer screening, osteoporosis prevention, and timely follow-up.
  • Chronic disease, multimorbidity, syndemics, and healthy aging using integrated models of care incorporating behavioral strategies.
  • Community knowledge enhancement and dissemination strategies that improve awareness, health literacy, and uptake of evidence-based interventions.
  • Implementation strategies that improve adoption, access, sustainment, and scalability of evidence-based preventive services for all.
  • Cross-cutting implementation research addressing health disparities, digital health, telehealth, remote monitoring, and sustainability.
  • Active-duty military and veteran women's health, including implementation of evidence-based care and provider training. 
This topic is being issued as part of the Make America Healthy Again initiative, which is expanding NIH and agency research into specific areas.

It aligns with:

  • NIH MAHA Chronic Disease Initiative : The National Institutes of Health (NIH) will launch an Initiative on Chronic Disease to leverage and align existing NIH research projects, improve NIH coordination on chronic disease research, and generate actionable results for diseases arising in childhood and adulthood.
  • NIH MAHA Chronic Disease Initiative : The NIH will launch a new Whole-Person-Health approach to chronic disease prevention research and leverage collective expertise across the agency to catalyze transformative discovery science and intervention strategies that promote wellness, resilience, and optimal health, including metabolic health, at all stages of life.
  • Real World Data Platform (RWDP) : The NIH will link multiple datasets, such as claims information, electronic health records, and wearables data, into a single integrated dataset for researchers studying the causes of, and developing treatments for, the chronic disease crisis. The RWDP will eliminate redundancies from data collection, linkage, and compute infrastructures (including artificial intelligence (AI)/machine learning and high-throughput analytics) while maintaining rigorous privacy protections and consent protections. It will also dramatically reduce administrative overhead by relying on a unified set of data use and governance agreements.
  • New Approach Methodologies (NAMs) : The expanded use of NAMs can enable earlier, more predictive insights into chronic disease mechanisms using human-relevant models such as organoids, computational simulations, and real-world data integration. This improves prevention, diagnosis, and personalized treatment strategies while reducing reliance on animal studies that often fail to replicate complex human conditions. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), and NIH have all committed to using NAMs moving forward, when appropriate.
  • Longitudinal Pediatric Health Insights : The VA will provide the NIH critical data and metrics on Attention Deficit Disorder/Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), diabetes, and pharmaceutical usage among Civilian Health and Medical Program of the Department of Veterans Affairs (CHAMPVA) beneficiaries under 18 to address longstanding gaps in pediatric research, particularly longitudinal analyses. With over 200,000 CHAMPVA beneficiaries in this age group, VA is uniquely positioned to track children’s health journeys across the U.S. and will enter into a data-sharing agreement with NIH, excluding personally identifiable information, to inform national strategies on early intervention, appropriate care utilization, and mental health policy.
  • Mental Health and Addiction Research : The NIH, working with HHS, will strengthen existing research by directing funding for research on mental health and addiction, with a special focus on screentime use in children and adolescents.
  • Rural and Tribal Health : NIH will convene a review of its research on health improvement in rural and tribal health for chronic childhood disease to ensure scientific rigor.

Central Scientific Contact:
Geetha P. Bansal, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Participating ICOs

All of Us Research Program (AOU)

Researchers are encouraged to use the All of Us Researcher Workbench to advance research in implementation science and women’s health.

This office does not award grants. Applications must be relevant to the objectives of at least one of the participating Institutes or Centers listed in this topic.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Sheri Schully, PhD
[email protected]

National Eye Institute (NEI)

NEI areas of interest include, but are not limited to, the following areas affecting women: 

  • Accelerate implementation of evidence-based approaches to prevent, detect, and manage eye and vision conditions across the life course.  
  • Advance implementation strategies for ocular complications associated conditions such as including pregnancy-related complications, autoimmune diseases, diabetes, and menopause.  
  • Improve integration of vision assessment into women’s healthcare settings to support timely screening, referral, treatment, and follow-up.  
  • Evaluate scalable and sustainable models of care, including telehealth, remote monitoring, ocular imaging, artificial intelligence, and other emerging technologies.  
  • Identify and address barriers to adoption and delivery of evidence-based eye care across clinical, community, and healthcare settings.  
  • Generate real-world evidence on implementation, adaptation, scale-up, and sustainability of effective interventions to improve vision outcomes.  
ICO Scientific Contact:
Lisa Neuhold, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Hongman Song, Ph.D.
[email protected]

National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID)

NIAID supports implementation research to advance evidence-based interventions for the treatment and prevention of infectious and immune-mediated diseases affecting women. Areas of interest include: 

  • Address barriers and facilitators to intervention uptake and sustainment. 
  • Integrate interventions into primary, reproductive, and maternal care. 
  • Use digital health and AI/SI to translate biomarkers and mechanistic insights into scalable decision-making. 
  • Improve diagnosis, treatment, and care of autoimmune and other immune-mediated diseases. 
  • Increase uptake of HIV and STIs prevention, testing, linkage to care, adherence, and retention. 
  • Improve prevention and management of infections and related complications during fertility planning, pregnancy, lactation, and postpartum. 
  • Identify predictive biomarkers in pregnancy, lactation, and postpartum and integrate risk stratification into care. 
  • Characterize immune drivers of menopause and translate insights into screening and preventive care. 
ICO Scientific Contact:
Katherine Hatcher, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Group email
[email protected]

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)
ICO Scientific Contact:
Melissa Green Parker, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

NICHD encourages research on implementation research relevant to the institute’s priority populations, including those specifically relevant to this women’s health topic:

  • Neonates, infants, children, adolescents, and young women
  • Pregnant, peripartum, postpartum, and lactating women
  • Adolescents and women of reproductive age with regards to reproductive and/or gynecologic health
  • Girls and women of any age with physical, intellectual, and/or developmental disabilities

NICHD’s participation reflects scientific interest in this area and mission relevance but does not indicate the availability of dedicated funds. Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact a NICHD program official prior to submission.

IC may give special consideration to support meritorious applications in this topic area.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Candace Tingen, PhD
[email protected]

National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)

Areas of interest include, but are not limited to the following:

  • Approaches addressing management of metabolic dysfunction and menopause symptoms
  • Evidence-based prevention, screening/diagnosis and treatment for type 2 diabetes to improve outcomes and slow progression in women with gestational diabetes and/or PCOS/PMOS
  • Approaches to increase adoption of evidence-based interventions for women with chronic kidney disease addressing reproductive and menopause health and other conditions
  • Adoption of evidence-based prevention/treatment approaches for genitourinary syndrome of menopause, urinary infections and incontinence
  • Management of visceral pain associated with gut brain interaction disorders
  • Identifying biomarkers, dietary interventions, or microbiome changes that lead to novel treatments for gastrointestinal diseases
  • Prevention/treatment of obesity and modification of obesity-related behaviors in women across their reproductive lifespan
IC may give special consideration to support meritorious applications in this topic area.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Shavon Artis Dickerson
[email protected]

Ziya Kirkali, M.D.
[email protected]

Britny Bock, MPH
[email protected]

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

NIMH seeks research using rigorous study designs to (1) test the effectiveness and implementation of evidence-based interventions (EBIs) and (2) identify and address implementation determinants to improve access to EBIs and improve mental health outcomes for women and girls.

Areas of interest include:

  • Testing strategies that modify established barriers and facilitators to sustain EBIs in real world settings.
  • Testing approaches to promote adoption and sustain screening for mental health conditions.  
  • Conducting hybrid effectiveness-implementation trials of preventive or therapeutic EBIs that both target risk factors unique to women and girls and examine implementation determinants and outcomes.
  • Testing strategies to address disparities in mental health services for disorders across the lifespan.
  • Applying computational approaches to service-use data to elucidate potential implementation targets. 
ICO Scientific Contact:
Tamara Lewis Johnson, MPH, MBA
[email protected]

Office of AIDS Research (OAR)

OAR is interested in:

  • Implementation research to advance the uptake, integration, scale-up, and sustainment of evidence-based HIV prevention, treatment, and care for women across the life course, including girls and young women. 
  • Community-engaged strategies to improve HIV testing, PrEP uptake and persistence, treatment adherence, and viral suppression.
  • Integration of HIV services into reproductive, maternal, primary, and other women’s health settings.
  • Female-specific HIV prevention modalities and dual-purpose prevention technologies.
  • Approaches addressing multimorbidity, aging, and co-occurring conditions among women with or at increased likelihood of HIV. 
  • Studies are encouraged to consider adequate representation of women to address persistent data gaps, trauma-informed approaches where relevant, multilevel barriers and facilitators, and engagement of affected communities and implementation partners.
     
This office does not award grants. Applications must be relevant to the objectives of at least one of the participating Institutes or Centers listed in this topic.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Elizabeth Barr, PhD
[email protected]

Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
This office does not award grants. Applications must be relevant to the objectives of at least one of the participating Institutes or Centers listed in this topic.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Cathy Maulsby, PhD
[email protected]

Office of Disease Prevention (ODP)

For this topic, ODP is particularly interested in:

  • Innovative prevention research that uses rigorous study design, measurement, and analytic methods to test implementation strategies that improve the reach, adoption, delivery, and sustainment of evidence-based preventive interventions and services for women across the lifespan.
  • Studies that examine and test strategies to address multilevel barriers and facilitators to implementation of evidence-based preventive interventions and services and evaluate both implementation and health outcomes to determine what works, for whom, under what conditions, and in which clinical, community, and public health settings.
  • Research that advances the uptake and sustained delivery of evidence-based preventive services and interventions, including approaches to risk reduction, screening and early detection, and prevention of chronic disease across the life course.
This office does not award grants. Applications must be relevant to the objectives of at least one of the participating Institutes or Centers listed in this topic.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Elizabeth L. Neilson, PhD, MPH, MSN
[email protected]

Division of Program Coordination, Planning and Strategic Initiatives, Office of Research Infrastructure Programs (ORIP)
  • ORIP seeks implementation science applications addressing barriers to adoption, integration, scale-up, and sustainment of resources, models, methods, technologies, and best practices that advance women’s health research.
  • Interests include strategies to promote uptake and sustained use of human-based/human-relevant models reflecting female biology, women’s health conditions, and sex-based differences.
  • Examples: human biospecimens, organoids, microphysiological systems, computational models, imaging tools, data resources, and other model platforms.
  • Applications are encouraged to promote rigor and reproducibility, including sex as a biological variable.
  • Applications are encouraged to build workforce capacity to use research infrastructure effectively.
  • ORIP also prioritizes women’s health implementation science through shared instrumentation grant programs.
IC may dedicate funds available to support applications in this Topic area depending upon the availability of funds, the number of meritorious applications, and competing ICO priorities.
IC may give special consideration to support meritorious applications in this topic area.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Division of Comparative Medicine
[email protected]

Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH)

ORWH interests:

  • Advance women's health across the life course through interdisciplinary implementation research.
  • Ensure sex-informed data where applicable for improved scientific rigor, reproducibility and generalizability.
  • Accelerate real‑world adoption of evidence‑based interventions through implementation science.
  • Evaluate approaches to increase adoption of evidence-based preventive interventions (e.g., use of vaginal estrogen in postmenopausal women) in primary care and other real-world settings.
  • Understand key biological and behavioral influences on UTI risk and recurrence, including hormonal factors, the genitourinary microbiome and pattern of antibiotic use or resistance.
  • Develop novel prevention strategies (e.g., non-antibiotic prophylaxis, probiotics, innovative therapeutics, behavioral interventions) to optimize urinary health and reduce recurrent UTIs in women.
This office does not award grants. Applications must be relevant to the objectives of at least one of the participating Institutes or Centers listed in this topic.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Geetha Bansal, Ph.D.
[email protected]

For technical issues E-mail OER Webmaster