Interventions to Promote Health by Fostering Connectedness

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Topic Description

Post Date: August 11, 2026

Expiration Date: August 11, 2028

This topic encourages rigorous research to evaluate connectedness interventions to improve health or reduce risk factors for chronic disease.

Background

The U.S. is facing a widespread chronic disease crisis, coinciding with increases in social isolation, loneliness, and poor mental health among Americans of all ages. 

In 2023, NIH issued a Request for Information (RFI) about innovative approaches to improve mental health.  A central theme of RFI responses was the need to enhance belonging, meaning, and purpose for individuals of all ages by strengthening connections with people, culture, and activities to advance mental and physical health. 

Epidemiological evidence indicates that connectedness confers positive health benefits across the lifespan. In particular, greater social connectedness is associated with improved behavioral, cognitive, and cardiovascular health; improved immune function; and lower all-cause mortality. 

Aligned with this evidence, the 2026 Surgeon General’s Warning on the Harms of Screen Use, emphasizes the need for youth to disconnect from screens and engage in more ‘real life’ activities like socializing, volunteering, and playing sports. Clinicians have begun to respond to the need for a greater sense of connectedness by “social prescribing” or “connection prescriptions,” recommending social or recreational activities for patients experiencing loneliness or social isolation. The 2026 MAHA ELEVATE initiative to test whole-person health interventions for Medicare recipients also identifies social connection as a critical area of focus for the growing older population.

Although existing evidence regarding the benefits of connectedness interventions is promising, more rigorous intervention studies are needed to build the evidence base. Such research is necessary for healthcare and other service providers to prioritize and optimize their delivery. 

Areas of Interest

Connectedness may take many forms, including but not limited to connections with people, communities, history, traditions, hobbies, sports, the arts, or nature. Interventions may be tested as adjuncts to healthcare, or as stand-alone interventions in non-medical settings.

Projects are strongly encouraged that:

  • Specify a clear conceptual model identifying the hypothesized pathways between connectedness and health outcomes.
  • Use validated measures of connectedness and health outcomes to the extent possible, such as those in the PhenX Toolkit.
  • Address multi-level factors that make connections possible and sustainable (e.g., an intervention connecting urban youth to nature may require providing transportation to existing green spaces).
  • Involve collaboration with relevant organizations that have capacity to implement or deliver connectedness interventions if proven effective.
  • Include a rigorous intervention study design that is sufficiently powered and accounts for the expected correlation in outcomes within clusters (e.g., family, school, clinic, neighborhood).
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 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.

Participating ICOs

Office of Disease Prevention (ODP)

For this topic, ODP is interested in interventions that promote connectedness at multiple levels (individual, peer/family, organizational, community), with a particular interest in multi-site or cluster randomized clinical trials.

IC may give special consideration to support meritorious applications in this topic area.
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:
Jennifer Alvidrez, PhD
[email protected]

National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH)

NCCIH is interested in connectedness interventions with psychological and/or physical input, often termed mind and body approaches, to promote mental, emotional, and behavioral health (MEB) and reduce the incidence and prevalence of MEB disorders. A range of designs, including feasibility, hybrid effectiveness-implementation, mechanistic, pragmatic, and community-based intervention studies are encouraged.

Examples include:

  • Implementation studies that leverage health information technology to expand to connectedness interventions, to improve whole-person outcomes, including physical functioning, sleep, and resilience.
  •  Studies examining biological, neurobiological, psychological, social, and behavioral mechanisms connectedness interventions. 
  • Studies done in partnership with schools, health care systems, and justice systems.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Beda Jean-Francois
[email protected]

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

NCI seeks experimental, mechanistic, and intervention studies on social, cultural, and environmental connectedness and cancer control outcomes, including but not limited to risk behaviors, screening, treatment decision-making, symptom management, and patient and caregiver physical and mental health.

Example topics include studies that:

  • Elucidate the dynamics of connectedness in dyads or social networks.
  • Test interventions that target multilevel determinants of connectedness, including environmental, cultural, and other contextual factors, to improve cancer outcomes.
  • Leverage interventions to understand mechanisms through which connectedness influences cancer outcomes.
  • Facilitate patient-clinician-caregiver connectedness to support shared decision making and care coordination.
  • Assess impacts of the online/social media information environment (e.g., social media, telemedicine, artificial intelligence) on connectedness and intervene to leverage or mitigate these effects.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Nicole Everson, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Rebecca Ferrer, Ph.D.
[email protected]

National Eye Institute (NEI)

NEI is interested in connectedness interventions that emphasize the intersections of visual impairment, social isolation, and wellness.  NEI interests include, but are not limited to, the following intervention areas:

  • Strategies for strengthening cultural and community connections for individuals who are blind or have low vision across the lifespan
  • Interventions for managing the emotional toll of vision changes
  • Interpersonal, organizational, or community-level approaches that address loss of independence and shifts in identity 
  • Integration of new accessibility technologies for visually impaired people that will enhance social, cultural, and/or environmental connectedness
  • Digital health interventions and care-delivery models that improve access to wellness resources for people experiencing vision loss
ICO Scientific Contact:
Cheri Wiggs, Ph.D.
[email protected]

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

NIA seeks to understand how connectedness affects the physical, cognitive, social, and emotional health and wellbeing of individuals in midlife and older adulthood. Basic experimental and mechanistic research, as well as mechanistically focused behavioral intervention research in human or animal models of disease, is encouraged. Intervention studies may benefit from attention to the NIH Stage Model for Behavioral Intervention Development. Examples of topics of interest include:

  • Social, emotional, and biological mechanisms underlying the links between connectedness and health.
  • Strategies to reduce social isolation and increase connectedness among older adults who are aging in place, kinless or living alone, and/or people living with or providing care for people with Alzheimer's disease (AD) and AD-related dementias following diagnosis.
  • The role of the built environment, physical spaces, and neighborhood resources in supporting connectedness, healthy aging, and cognitive stimulation.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Emerald Nguyen, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Matt Sutterer, Ph.D.
[email protected]

Emily Hooker, Ph.D.
[email protected]

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

NIAAA is interested in research on the role of connectedness in prevention and integrated health services to address alcohol misuse and alcohol use disorder (AUD) across the lifespan. Interventions to Increase access and uptake of evidence-based screening and brief interventions, and use of medication across care levels and settings are of particular interest. We welcome interdisciplinary collaboration and community responsive projects at the intersection of health, social and physical environments, and context-specific norms/behaviors. 

NIAAA is particularly interested in studies that:

  • Identify pathways and mechanisms through which connectedness might prevent initiation or escalation of unhealthy alcohol use and increase treatment engagement and duration.
  • Examine impact of social connectedness on recovery outcomes using longitudinal approaches.
  • Apply life course frameworks to better understand the influence of social connectedness on trajectories of AUD risk and recovery.
IC may give special consideration to support meritorious applications in this topic area.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Miya Whitaker, Psy.D.
[email protected]

Tatiana Balachova, Ph.D.
[email protected]

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

NIDA seeks research addressing social connectedness or loneliness to prevent or treat substance use disorders (SUDs) and/or enhance recovery. Outcomes of interest include substance use risk, initiation, escalation, SUD diagnosis, connection to or retention in treatment, or sustained recovery. Stakeholder engagement in the research process is strongly encouraged to maximize acceptability, feasibility, scalability, and sustainability of the proposed research. 

Specific interests include:

  • Adapting and testing existing social connectedness/loneliness interventions in substance use or recovery contexts
  • Testing services and system-level interventions addressing social connectedness/loneliness
  • Evaluating implementation strategies to promote uptake of social connectedness/loneliness interventions
ICO Scientific Contact:
Shannon Nicks
[email protected]

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

NIMH is interested in studies that:

  • Adapt or augment effective interventions to target aspects of connectedness associated with risk for mental illness.
  • Test strategies to improve connectedness, outcomes, and underlying intervention mechanisms among individuals with mental illness.
  • Translate emergent research on social connection mechanisms and into clinical hypotheses and novel mental health interventions.
  • Evaluate how interventions to improve connectedness change brain or behavioral mechanisms in individuals with mental illness.
  • Develop, test, and implement interventions or strategies to address connectedness among individuals living with HIV, to improve mental well-being and HIV-related health outcomes.
  • Adapt culturally informed social‑prescribing interventions, including digital approaches, to strengthen social connectedness among individuals and caregivers who are at risk for mental illness.
ICO Scientific Contact:
Mary Rooney, PhD
[email protected]

Vidya Vedham, PhD
[email protected]

Theresa Senn, PhD
[email protected]

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)

NIMHD is interested in community-engaged connectedness interventions to improve physical and mental health and reduce risk among populations that experience health disparities. Topics of interest include but are not limited to interventions: 

  • Tailored to unique and modifiable health-related effects of connectedness 
  • Examining the influence of connectedness on implementation outcomes
  • Evaluating the impact of connectedness on biomedical workforce training and patient care
  • Evaluating social, cultural, or environmental connectedness as mediators in reducing population-based health disparities
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.
ICO Scientific Contact:
NIMHD Division of Community Health and Population Science
[email protected]

National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)

NINR is interested in research on interventions to promote mental well-being through social, cultural, or environmental connectedness. Interventions informed by and developed with communities are strongly encouraged.

Some specific areas of interest for connectedness interventions include:

  • Community-engaged interventions that consider and address conditions of daily life (conditions in which people are born, grow, learn, work, play, live, and age)
  • Interventions that focus on school social and physical environments
  • Interventions within healthcare settings that leverage advances in artificial intelligence (AI)
  • Multilevel interventions (individual, family, community, and system-level)
ICO Scientific Contact:
Julia Seay, Ph.D.
[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:
OBSSR Scientific Contact
[email protected]

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