Notice Number: NOT-HL-18-632

Key Dates
Release Date: June 29, 2018

Related Announcements
RFA-HL-20-004
RFA-HL-20-003

Issued by
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)

Purpose

The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI) intends to publish a new Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to invite applications that propose to test strategies for delivering proven-effective, evidence-based, community-level interventions for reducing or eliminating cardiovascular and/or pulmonary health disparities, and that promote and improve population health in high-burden communities.

In the face of persistent and often widening disparities in cardiovascular and pulmonary health, disease, and risk factors, a large number of proven-effective interventions that can improve health outcomes exists. This initiative will seek applications that propose to utilize these known interventions to determine optimal and sustainable delivery strategies that provide generalizable knowledge for reducing or eliminating disparities in cardiovascular and pulmonary health, disease, and risk factors in high burden communities across the U.S.

The NHLBI is interested in applications that will address questions relevant to the NHLBI mission and align with the Institute's Strategic Vision (https://www.nhlbi.nih.gov/about/documents/strategic-vision ).

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

The FOA is expected to be published in Fall 2018 with an expected application due date in Winter 2019.

This FOA will utilize the UG3/UH3 activity code, a bi-phasic, milestone-driven cooperative agreement. The NHLBI also intends to support a Data Coordinating Center to provide support and coordination for the awardees funded through the UG3/UH3 FOA to provide organizational infrastructure for collaboration, facilitate data harmonization and standardization, optimize data sharing, and facilitate implementation science innovation and skills building across awardees. Details of the planned FOA are provided below.

Research Initiative Details

This Notice encourages investigators with expertise and insight in the areas of cardiovascular and pulmonary health disparities; implementation science; community-engaged and/or community-based participatory research; and/or health services and multilevel, multicomponent intervention delivery science to consider applying to this new FOA.

Applications that propose collaborative approaches by investigators with combined expertise in behavioral, clinical and social sciences, implementation science, health disparities, economics, epidemiology, and/or policy are also encouraged.

The NHLBI anticipates that proposed projects will employ proven-effective community-engaged, community-based participatory approaches to address disparities within communities that have well-documented, high burdens of cardiovascular and/or pulmonary diseases and health risk factors. Awards supported by this initiative will utilize strategies to enhance evidence-based intervention adoption, fidelity, and sustainability. The NHLBI anticipates that applications will:

• Propose a multilevel, multicomponent Hybrid Type III implementation research design to determine optimal and sustainable delivery strategies for the combination of at least three proven-effective interventions to address cardiovascular and/or pulmonary disease risk factors, as well as inform understanding of key mediators/mechanisms for adoption, implementation, and sustainability;

• Propose community-based participatory partnerships that include one or more research institutions and key community stakeholders, particularly stakeholders with access to and knowledge of high burden populations, but whom have traditionally lacked financial or human capital resources, and/or research infrastructure;

• Include assessment of implementation costs as an integral part of the proposed project;

• Utilize a validated implementation research framework (e.g., REACH, CFIR, RE-AIM, PRECEDE-PROCEED);

• Include linkages to healthcare delivery within the community (e.g., primary care, community health workers, federally-qualified health centers, etc.);

• Leverage existing and/or previous efforts to address health disparities (e.g., Million Hearts, Evidence Now, CDC Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health (REACH), etc.), and previous NIH-funded research (e.g., SPRINT, DASH diet, etc.);

• Include a core group of measures related to disparities burden (e.g., population-level lifetime cardiovascular risk; risk of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); geo-spatial profiles of community disease burden; community indicators of the social determinants of health; predicted and/or currently observed regional mortality rates; CDC community health status indicators);

• Focus on at least one community with a high burden of cardiovascular and/or pulmonary health disparities (e.g., geographic region, rural or inner-city locale, racial/ethnic group, socioeconomic status, sex);

• Engage early stage investigators within research teams to increase the cadre of researchers with skills in community-engaged implementation research who are capable of addressing cardiovascular and/or pulmonary health disparities.

It is anticipated that as a group, FOA awardees will constitute a collaborative network with capabilities for addressing research questions aimed at reducing or eliminating disparities and improving health outcomes in cardiovascular and pulmonary disease within the U.S. population.