Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Implementing the HIV Service Cascade for Justice-Involved Populations

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Notice Number: NOT-DA-20-003

Key Dates

Release Date: November 01, 2019
Estimated Publication Date of Funding Opportunity Announcement: February 01, 2020
First Estimated Application Due Date: April 01, 2020
Earliest Estimated Award Date: June 01, 2020
Earliest Estimated Start Date: June 01, 2020

Related Announcements
None

Issued by
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Purpose

NIDA intends to publish a funding opportunity announcement for cooperative agreements that will examine the delivery of the full continuum of HIV services for adults with injection drug use or opioid use disorder in US community corrections populations (probation/parole).

This Notice is being provided to allow the potential investigators sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations, identify appropriate communities, and create responsive applications. The FOA is expected to use the cooperative clinical trial mechanism (U01). The FOA is expected to be published in February 2020 with expected application due dates in April 2020. As a cooperative, it is expected that investigators upon funding will work jointly with federal staff at NIH/NIDA and with other funded grantees to achieve study goals.

Details of the planned FOA are provided below.

Research Initiative Details

Community re-entry from incarceration is a time of heightened risk for opioid relapse, mortality, HIV risk behaviors, and discontinuation of HIV treatment. Integrated care models that prioritize HIV and OUD/IDU and eliminate barriers to access, have the potential to reduce HIV transmission, enhance HIV viral suppression, and reduce other negative outcomes, such as relapse and recidivism. This initiative aligns with the NIH-OAR priority of reducing the incidence of HIV, and with the President’s objective to end the HIV epidemic by 2030.

This initiative builds on numerous existing models of linking justice-involved populations to treatment and healthcare services at the point of community re-entry. The intent of this initiative is to compare two broad models of service linkage: utilizing peer navigators, recovery case managers, or analogous services to connect justice-involved individuals to available HIV and OUD treatment services; or to increase access to those services by making them more available in the communities where clients reside (specifically, via the use of mobile treatment units). Whether in existing facilities or in mobile units, study sites must deliver a full continuum of prevention and treatment services for HIV and OUD. Services would be inclusive of HIV screening, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), and highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART), as well as medications for opioid use disorder (MOUDs) and access to behavioral counseling (in person or via telehealth). Mobile treatment vans and peer navigators will be key components of the intervention design in this initiative. Services need not be exclusively available to probation and parole populations. Applicants are not expected to deliver services within correctional settings (pre-release).

The intended FOA would solicit collaborative multisite hybrid implementation-effectiveness trials examining both the effectiveness of the clinical interventions as received in this population as well as the methods by which those interventions are delivered (navigation/mobile services). Each applicant will be expected to collaborate with a minimum of 4 communities that are currently experiencing outbreaks of HIV/HCV infection among persons who inject drugs, or are demonstrably vulnerable to such outbreaks. Applicants will be expected to provide epidemiological data from 2015 or later demonstrating community-level HIV risk among IDU for each geographic area involved in the proposed study (CDC, state, or local sources may be cited).

The FOA is expected to support either individual or linked research applications. Linked and individual applicants are expected to propose research questions that are aligned with the treatment services previously described within the parole/probation community settings. Note that for linked applications, each application must contribute the minimum number of required communities. Funded applicants will be expected to develop harmonized measures to maximize the scientific yield of the research.

Funding Information

Estimated Total Funding $2M in FY20
Expected Number of Awards 1-2
Estimated Award Ceiling $2M
Primary CFDA Numbers 93.279

Anticipated Eligible Organizations

Inquiries

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NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices

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