Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Addressing Barriers to Healthcare Transitions for Survivors of Childhood and Adolescent Cancers (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)

Key Dates

None

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

The National Cancer Institute (NCI) intends to publish a notice of funding opportunity (NOFO) as a request for applications (RFA) to solicit R01 applications supporting multi-level intervention studies that address individual and system level barriers to transitions from pediatric to adult care for survivors of childhood and adolescent cancers. The goal of this opportunity is to support the development and testing of interventions and strategies that promote high-quality transitional care and continued engagement of survivors of childhood and adolescent cancers to ensure these survivors receive appropriate surveillance and care into adulthood. Overall, it is anticipated that this research will provide critical evidence for establishing best practices and standards of care that can be widely disseminated and adopted.
 

This NOFO is associated with the STAR Reauthorization Act of 2023, which is intended to maximize and accelerate discovery, development, and availability of promising models of care for pediatric cancer survivors, including transition to adult care and care coordination.

The NOFO is expected to be published in June 2024 with an expected application due date in October 2024. 

The NOFO will be reissued in 2025 for a second Application Due Date (in June 2025) after the implementation of the Simplified Review Framework (SRF) for NIH Research Project Grant Applications. See Simplified Review Framework for NIH Research Project Grant Applications - Update and Implementation Plans. The second issuance of the NOFO will allow for both new and resubmission applications with the SRF in effect.

This Notice is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and responsive applications.

This NOFO will utilize the R01 activity code. Details of the planned RFA are provided below.
 

This NOFO is associated with the STAR Reauthorization Act of 2023 (Section 201a) which calls for the support of research evaluating model systems of care for pediatric cancer survivors, including transition to adult care and care coordination. The RFA will solicit R01 applications proposing multi-level intervention studies that address individual and system level barriers to transitions from pediatric to adult care for survivors of childhood and adolescent cancers. The goal of the opportunity is to support the development and testing of interventions and strategies that promote high-quality transitional care and continued engagement of survivors of childhood and adolescent cancers to ensure these survivors receive appropriate surveillance and care into adulthood. Overall, it is anticipated that this research will provide critical evidence for establishing best practices and standards of care that can be widely disseminated and adopted.

Examples of potential research topics include but are not limited to:

• Testing an intervention focused on supporting coordination of care between survivors and pediatric and adult healthcare providers for ongoing follow-up care;
• Adapting and testing of an existing transition intervention to be tailored to childhood cancer survivors as they move to adult survivorship care, with tailoring to diverse settings and populations as appropriate;
• Development and testing of effective strategies for the ongoing engagement or re-engagement of survivors, and approaches for improving adherence to risk-based survivorship care; 
• Interventions to coordinate management of physical and psychosocial issues (including comorbid conditions) among multiple providers; and
• Evaluation of strategies to facilitate communication and coordination between patients and healthcare providers (pediatric and adult) during and after transition to adult care. 

NCI is particularly interested in applications that address barriers to care that contribute to disparities in health outcomes for childhood cancer survivors, and/or that focus on high-risk groups such as uninsured/under-insured. Studies should focus on issues specific to childhood cancer survivors rather than general care coordination issues.

Key Requirements

• Applications must be focused on the evaluation of strategies or the development and testing of interventions;
• Applications must describe how their study design considers eventual scalability, sustainability, and integration of the intervention to real world settings; and
• Research teams should be multidisciplinary, as appropriate to the proposed study.

Non-responsive applications 

This NOFO will not support: 

• Studies not including human subjects;
• Studies focused on interventions or models of care that do not consider eventual scalability, sustainability, and eventual integration of the intervention to real world settings; and
• Applications that do not reflect multidisciplinary research.
   

These applications will be deemed not responsive to this NOFO and will not be reviewed.

Funding Information

Public/State Controlled Institution of Higher Education
Private Institution of Higher Education
Nonprofit with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institution of Higher Education)
Small Business
For-Profit Organization (Other than Small Business)
State Government
Indian/Native American Tribal Government (Federally Recognized)
County governments
Independent school districts
Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
Indian/Native American Tribally Designated Organization (Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
U.S. Territory or Possession
Indian/Native American Tribal Government (Other than Federally Recognized)
Regional Organization
Eligible Agencies of the Federal Government

Applications are not being solicited at this time. 

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Lynn S. Adams, PhD
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
Telephone: 202-570-5079
Email: adamsls@nih.gov