This Notice of Special Interest informs current awardees that the National Cancer Institute (NCI) is providing the opportunity for supplemental funding to stimulate interest and promote the inclusion of global (outside of the United States [U.S.]) populations, biospecimens and/or data to enhance/accelerate the progress in understanding and reducing cancer health disparities in the U.S. and globally. This Administrative Supplement is designed to support NCI-funded investigators to add global populations, biospecimens, and/or data to their currently funded projects and thereby strengthen their current research aims to better advance cancer health disparity research.

Background:

U.S. racial/ethnic minority and/or underserved populations continue to experience significant disparities in cancer risk and outcomes despite the many advancements in cancer research. For instance, African Americans have the highest death rates from all cancer sites combined, and from cancers of the lung, colon and rectum, breast, prostate, and the cervix of all racial/ethnic groups in the U.S. American Indians and Alaska Natives have the poorest 5-year survival rates among all racial/ethnic groups, for all cancers combined. While Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders have lower rates for most common cancers compared to other racial/ethnic groups, they have the highest rates for liver cancer. Similarly, Hispanic women have lower rates for many common cancers but their rates for new diagnoses of cervical cancer is higher than all other populations. The causes of these cancer health disparities are multifactorial, including differences in access to healthcare, diet and lifestyle, cultural barriers, environmental exposures, and ancestry-related biologic/genetic factors.

The landscape of the U.S. racial/ethnic minority populations, especially Hispanics/Latinos, Asian Americans and African Americans, continues to be transformed by foreign-born Hispanics, Asians and Blacks, many of whom originate from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) in Latin America (Mexico, Central and South America), Southeast Asia, the Caribbean, and Africa. Preliminary research shows that there are differences in health seeking behaviors, risk behaviors and health outcomes between U.S.-born racial/ethnic minorities and their foreign-born counterparts; and that these differences might be attributed, in part, to the environmental, biological/genetic, and sociocultural differences. The changing demographics and dynamics among racial/ethnic minority populations in the U.S., and the complexity of cancer health disparities globally underscore the need for innovative, multilevel, and collaborative global research to better understand and address cancer health disparities. Expanding cancer health disparities research to include global populations, biospecimens and/or data will advance/accelerate the progress in understanding and addressing cancer health disparities in the U.S. and globally.

Specific Areas Research Interest

The NCI encourages supplement research projects that employ comparative research designs between global populations and at least one of the U.S. racial/ethnic minority populations (e.g., American Indian/Alaska Native, Asian, African American, Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander, and Hispanic/Latino populations) or underserved populations. Areas of research where inclusion of global populations, biospecimens and/or data might enhance/accelerate the progress in understanding and reducing cancer health disparities include, but are not limited to the following:

• Disparities associated with cancers that disproportionately affect racial/ethnic minority or underserved populations in the U.S., but where definitive research conclusions on disparities may be precluded by the low numbers of cancer cases in the U.S.
• Mechanistic underpinnings of genetic and/or epigenetic variations and molecular mechanisms that may contribute to disparities in risk/outcomes of cancer among racial/ethnic minority and/or underserved populations.
• Interactions of infectious agents with other risk factors among various racial/ethnic minority and/or underserved populations and the mechanisms through which they result in cancer health disparities.
• Influence of country of origin, length of stay, cultural beliefs, dietary practices, and other social factors that drive cancer disparities within and between racial/ethnic minority subpopulations.
• Effects of acculturation on cancer health disparities in various racial/ethnic minority sub-populations.
• Barriers and facilitators of uptake of screening and utilization of care and other preventive services within and between different racial/ethnic minority subpopulations.
• The role of behavioral/lifestyle, social, cultural, and environmental risk factors for cancer in racial/ethnic minority or underserved populations.
• Approaches to improve patient healthcare access and investigations on how to strengthen linkage between cancer screening and treatment among racial/ethnic minority or underserved populations.
• Risk/protective factors that differ among populations including genetic variants or gene-environment interactions.
• Genetic linkages with ancestry informative markers in U.S. racial/ethnic minority populations.
• Interventions targeted to increase preventive behaviors, cancer screening, follow-up, referral-to-care, and improve symptom management among specific racial/ethnic minority populations

The NCI encourages collaborative research among NCI-funded domestic investigators and their foreign counterparts who have complementary expertise and access to global populations, biospecimens, and/or data. Applicants are encouraged to leverage existing resources and partnerships, and to design projects that can reasonably be completed within the given time and budget. Within the scope of the award (i.e., the peer reviewed and awarded project/program and specific aims, studies enhanced by supplemental funding may involve the collection and/or analysis of samples and/or data from previous studies. Where appropriately justified, supplemental funding may be applied towards attaining adequate sample sizes and/or increasing population diversity to advance global cancer health disparities research.

Eligibility

• Administrative supplement applications are limited to currently funded projects supported by NCI.
• PDs/PIs must hold an active eligible R01, R37, P01, P20, P30, P50, U19, U01, U54, or UM1 award supported through NCI --no other grant or cooperative agreement mechanisms are eligible for this program.
• The proposed project for supplemental funding is required to be within the scope of the parent award and be a logical extension of the original aims.
• The parent award does not need to have included a cancer health disparities research aspect or question as part of their original scientific aims. However, the request for supplemental funding must propose to enhance the already funded research project/program by incorporating a cancer health disparities aspect, and by including a global population, biospecimens, and/or data.
• For supplements to parent awards that include multiple PDs/PIs, the supplement may be requested by any or all of the PDs/PIs (in accordance with the existing leadership plan) and submitted by the awardee institution of the parent award.

Application and Submission Information

Applications for this initiative must be submitted using the following opportunity or its subsequent reissued equivalent.

• PA-18-591 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)

All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and PA-18-591 must be followed, with the following additions:

• Application Due Date: Submissions must be received by May 15, 2020, at 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization for FY 2020 funding.
• For funding consideration, applicants must include NOT-CA-20-032 (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.
• Applicants should begin the supplement application abstract by stating This application is being submitted in response to the Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) identified as NOT-CA-20-032.
• Budget and Period of Support:
  • The budget should not exceed $200,000 in total costs.
  • At least one full year on the parent grant must remain at the time of funding. The application budget is limited to 1 year only.
  • Requests for no-cost extensions on the parent grant to accommodate a supplement will not be permitted.
  • Only one supplement application per grant will be accepted for consideration through this Notice.
• The Research Strategy must not exceed three (3) pages and summarize the activities of the parent grant that encompass those proposed in the supplemental request and describe how those activities are proposed for augmentation and/or enhancement in the supplemental request by:
  • Describing the supplement's purpose, relationship of the supplement request to the parent grant (proposed research must be within scope of the parent grant), and the additional value provided to the underlying funded research (parent grant) of the PI and the collaborating investigators.
    • Describing the proposed global population, biospecimens and/or data, and how the applicant will access the same.
    • Justifying the disparity being investigated and how inclusion of the global population, biospecimens and/or data will advance the progress in understanding and addressing cancer health disparities.
• NCI requires applicants to submit electronically through Grants.gov. All applications (including those for multi-project activity codes) must be submitted electronically using a single-project application form package with the Competition ID of FORMS-E-ADMINSUPP-RESEARCH
• The process for Streamlined Submissions using the eRA Commons cannot be used for this initiative.

Administrative Review Process:

NCI will conduct administrative reviews of applications submitted to their IC and will support the most meritorious applications submitted for consideration, based upon the programmatic priorities and availability of funds.

Criteria:

1. Does the administrative supplement reasonably allow for the proposed project to be completed, given the time and budget requested?
2. Does the proposed project for supplemental funding include, and appropriately justify the inclusion of the global population, biospecimens and/or data?
3. Does the proposed project for supplemental funding fill an identified gap in the scientific literature that advances cancer health disparities research?
4. Does the applicant demonstrate reasonable access to the appropriate global populations, biospecimens and/or data?

Applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the program contact at the Institute supporting the parent award that a request has been submitted in response to this NOSI to facilitate efficient processing of the application.

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