None

National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)

National Eye Institute (NEI)

National Institute on Aging (NIA)

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)

National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD)

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)

National Cancer Institute (NCI)

All applications to this funding opportunity announcement should fall within the mission of the Institutes/Centers. The following NIH Offices may co-fund applications assigned to those Institutes/Centers.

Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH)

The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), with the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Eye Institute (NEI), National Institute on Aging (NIA), National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD), National Insitute of Nursing Research (NINR) and the Office of Research on Womens Health (ORWH), intends to promote a new initiative by publishing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to solicit applications for innovative, collaborative, mutli-level and/or multi-disciplinary research designed to study the effective adaptation, integration, and implementation of recommended guidelines of care of persons with multiple chronic conditions (MCCs) from U.S. populations that experience health disparities.

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 Winter 2022 with an expected application due date in Spring 2022.

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

The overarching goal of this FOA is to support innovative, multidisciplinary, and multi-level and/or multi-component research through existing or newly proposed health care models designed to optimize the care of persons with MCCs from U.S. populations that experience health disparities through the adaption, integration, and implementation of evidence-based or recommended guidelines of care for different and coexisting MCCs with a holistic perspective, and focused on attaining optimal health outcomes as the primary goal. The integration/implementation of multiple guidelines of care should be set to accomplish optimal treatment and recommended health outcomes goals to reach health equity, and not merely demonstrating improvement in health outcomes.

Chronic diseases of interest are for purposes of this FOA those that have the highest prevalence and/or are associated with the greatest burden of morbidity, disability, and/or mortality among populations that experience health disparities. These diseases/conditions include: obesity, diabetes and its complications, cardiovascular diseases (include coronary artery disease, heart failure, peripheral vascular disease, and stroke), cardiometabolic disease risk factors (e.g., hypertension, hypercholesterolemia/dyslipidemia, tobacco smoking, prediabetes), cancer and its complications and risk factors, chronic respiratory diseases -especially chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma-, sleep disordered breathing, cognitive decline (including Alzheimer’s disease and related dementias), chronic liver disease and cirrhosis, substance use disorders, chronic kidney disease (including end-stage renal disease), osteoarthritis and other chronic musculoskeletal diseases, mental health conditions (including anxiety and depression), diseases and disorders of the visual system, and diseases and disorders of the auditory system, including deafness and other communication disorders.

The primary aim of this initiative is to attain optimal health outcomes within the context of the care of coexisting MCCs based on evidence-based guidelines and patient-centered goals through health care models that adapt to patients’ health care needs, personal goals, resources, and limitations. The integration/implementation of multiple guidelines of care should be set to accomplish optimal treatment and recommended goals (e.g., optimal treatment and control goals, optimal continuity of care and recommended follow-up) to reach health equity, and not merely demonstrating improvement in health outcomes. Research may take place within the context of scenarios involving existing health care models within established health care settings, or studies involving the proposal of brand-new health care models. Research may involve more than one component within a health care model or more than one level of influence (per NIMHD’s Research Framework).

Studies would be expected to be performed in clinical/health care settings that provide health care to and include in the research design sufficiently diverse patient populations (for example, >50% patients from populations that experience health disparities), thus allowing appropriate health outcomes/health equity comparison analyses. Ideally, more than one population that experiences health disparities would be represented in the patient population of interest, unless geography or other circumstances would posit limitations to do so. Limited-resource institutions and health care settings are of high-priority under this initiative. Research teams could include investigators from both limited-resource and high-resource institutions. Within the context of such partnerships, is expected that investigators from limited-resourced institutions will assume primary responsibility for the study design and execution, while investigators from high-resource institutions are expected to provide scientific expertise and technical assistance to less research-intensive institutions to successfully execute research activities. Given that the bulk of research activities will take place in limited-resource institutions and health care settings, it is expected that the most effort and support will be directed to those institutions and personnel from those institutions should be assigned primary responsibilities and be assured key personnel status.

Although most studies on MCCs have focused on adults, some studies have highlighted the increasing prevalence of children with chronic diseases, especially asthma, and their unique health care needs. Therefore, projects focused on the health care of children with MCCs are also of interest. 

The initiative will support interventions (especially multi-component or multi-level interventions), clinical trials (including cluster-randomized trials, pragmatic trials), natural experiments (e.g., impact of health care and non-health care policies), mixed-methods, quasi-experimental studies, time-series quality improvement studies, and evaluation of proposed interventions within existing health care models or newly proposed health care models.

TBD