Key Dates

Related Announcements

• August 10, 2020 - NIAAA Notice of Special Interest: Secondary Analyses of Existing Alcohol Research Data. See NOSI NOT-AA-20-018
• May 07, 2020 - NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See NOFO PA-20-195 
• May 07, 2020 - NIH Small Research Grant Program (Parent R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See NOFO PA-20-200
• May 05, 2020 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed). See NOFO  PA-20-185

Issued by

National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)

Purpose

The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to solicit applications to support the secondary analyses of existing data sets with the goal of enhancing our understanding of the following: 1) the patterns and trajectories of alcohol consumption, 2) the epidemiology and etiology, including genetics, of alcohol-related problems and disorders, and 3) alcohol-related health services and health systems, including access, quality, and efficiency. This Notice encourages applications proposing innovative analyses of existing alcohol research data, answering novel research hypotheses and questions, and developing and testing advanced analytical methodologies applicable to alcohol related epidemiological, behavioral and genetics research.

Background

Epidemiologic, behavioral and genetics research projects typically generate data with potential utility beyond the specific hypotheses and questions that they were designed to address. In addition, the general progress of the field often uncovers new questions which could be, in part or in whole, addressed through the analysis of data originally gathered from previous projects and for other purpose. Furthermore, given the expense of original data collection and the relatively modest expense of secondary data analysis, making use of existing data to answer new and emerging questions is a sensible use of scientific resources.

In addition to the wide range of existing data sources in the public domain, data collected through NIH funded grants are also rich resources to study alcohol use. NIH issued NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing  effective on January 25, 2023 to promote the sharing of scientific data. NIAAA updated its existing data sharing policy through Notice of NIAAA Data-Sharing Information for Human Subjects Grants Research to align with the NIH new policy for data management and sharing.  With the implementation of these policies, more and more high quality, standardized data from NIH funded research are becoming available to the research community.  Electronic health records collected by clinicians and hospitals are also suitable data sources for this Notice. Researchers are encouraged to review the following data resources, among others, prior to submitting an application: Alcohol Epidemiologic Data Directory, Alcohol Policy Information System(APIS), NIAAA Data Archive, NIDA Data Share Website, NIH-Supported Data Sharing Resources, All of Us Research Hub, Database of Genotypes and Phenotypes (dbGaP), NIMH Data Archive,  National Addiction & HIV Data Archive Program (NAHDAP), etc.

The Notice will support, but is not limited to, the following research areas/topics:

• Develop, improve and validate effective measurement of underage drinking, high-intensity binge drinking, drinking during pregnancy, adult alcohol misuse and alcohol use disorders in the general population as well as among racial and ethnic minority and other health disparities populations. Such measurement enables one to better understand levels and patterns of alcohol involvement that are associated with specific consequences across the lifespan
• Pursue big data approaches that integrate and harmonize qualitative and quantitative measurements from various study designs and sources, and provide comprehensive analytical methods for the study of alcohol misuse and progression to alcohol use disorder 
• Develop effective data analytical approaches for real-time assessment of alcohol consumption and related behaviors, such as using ecological momentary assessment (EMA), mobile, and sensor technologies
• Develop machine learning and other artificial intelligence algorithms to study drinking patterns, identify and predict risky drinking behaviors, and enable timely targeted preventive interventions
• Assess the impact of high-risk drinking to COVID-19 outcomes, including behavioral, social, and economic consequences of the pandemic as they relate to alcohol consumption levels and patterns
• Examine differences in alcohol consumption alone or in combination with other substance use, risk and protective factors, comorbid psychiatric and/or chronic physical conditions in alcohol users that may contribute to poor health outcomes in certain NIH-designated U.S. health disparity populations.
• Leverage data linkage across administrative, contextual, and health-related data to examine multi-levels of influence on alcohol misuse and related behaviors, alcohol use disorder, alcohol-related problems and consequences, treatment seeking, healthcare costs, access, quality, and recovery
• Examine the impact of alcohol policies to prevent alcohol misuse and related consequences
•  Examining risk factors and/or predictors of alcohol-involved non-fatal and fatal injuries (e.g., self-directed; accidental) among patients with alcohol misuse comorbidities such as mental disorder, opioid misuse, and other substance misuse
• Integrating alcohol prevention intervention data sets to determine whether the interventions reduced additional alcohol-involved untoward outcomes (e.g., opioid misuse; failure to complete high school; criminal justice involvement; suicidal ideation and behaviors) as well as reducing alcohol use and exploring likely mediators and moderators (e.g., age, racial/ethnic minority, sexual and gender minority, etc.) of intervention effects 
• Evaluate alcohol health services to identify approaches that can be used to improve the quality of alcohol related health services in the general population, racial and ethnic minority and other health disparities populations
• Identify barriers to and strategies for improving access to alcohol-related treatment across the continuum of care and in varied settings, e.g., primary care, emergency departments, specialty care, etc.
• Identify which settings, patient characteristics (including but not limited to racial, ethnic, and gender minority status), and other variables contribute to variability in access to and effectiveness of alcohol-related health services
• Develop a common metric of alcohol-related phenotypic and environmental measures across study designs
• Develop and engage genetic analysis methods such as pathway, network and multi-omics analyses
• Use new Genetic/Genomics analytical tools to relate AUD GWAS (genome-wide association study) existing data with brain expression data to establish their relationships
• Use novel bioinformatic tools to perform cross species genomics or comparative genomics to detect new eQTL (expression quantitative trait loci) related to AUD from existing data sets
• Seek to optimize use of established data sets to increase our knowledge about the genetic, biological, psychological, environmental factors that contribute to alcohol related health disparities

Application and Submission Information

This notice applies to due dates on or after October 05, 2023, and subsequent receipt dates through September 06, 2026. 

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-20-185 - NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PA-20-200 - NIH Small Research Grant Program (Parent R03 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
• PA-20-195 - NIH Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (Parent R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and the notice of funding opportunity used for submission must be followed, with the following additions:

• For funding consideration, applicants must include “NOT-AA-23-011” (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 contacts in Section VII of the listed notice of funding opportunity with the following additions/substitutions:

Scientific/Research Contact(s)

Wenxing Zha, Ph.D. (Methodology, Measurement and Epidemiology)
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA/DEPR)
Telephone: 301-443-0633
Email: zhaw@mail.nih.gov

Abbas Parsian, Ph.D. (Human Genetics and Genomic Research)
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA/DNB)
Telephone: 301-443-5733
Email: parsiana@mail.nih.gov

Laura Kwako, Ph.D. (Health Services Research)
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA/DTRR)
Telephone: 301-451-8507
Email: laura.kwako@nih.gov

Peer Review Contact(s)

Examine your eRA Commons account for review assignment and contact information (information appears two weeks after the submission due date).

Financial/Grants Management Contact(s)

Judy Fox
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)
Telephone: 301-443-4704
Email: jfox@mail.nih.gov