Key Dates

NOT-MH-21-185 - Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Systems-Level Risk Detection and Interventions to Reduce Suicide Ideation and Behaviors in Black Children and Adolescents (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) intends to promote a new initiative by publishing a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to solicit applications for research supporting pilot work to develop and test the effectiveness and potential implementation of systems-level interventions that systematically detect and intervene to reduce risk for suicide, suicide ideation and behaviors (SIB), and non-suicide self-injury (NSSI) among Black children and adolescents.

This Notice of Intent to Publish (NOITP) is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and responsive projects. 

The FOA is expected to be published in Spring 2021 with an expected application due date in Summer 2021.

This FOA will utilize the R34 activity code. Details of the planned FOA are provided below.

Consistent with the goals of the National Action Alliance for Suicide Prevention, NIMH seeks to support research on strategies to reduce the suicide rate in the U.S. by 20% by the year 2025. The recently documented increase in SIB among Black children and adolescents underscores a critical need for early risk detection and effective prevention strategies focused specifically on these youth. The ultimate goal of this initiative is to support pilot work for subsequent studies testing the effectiveness and potential implementation of systems-level interventions that systematically detect and intervene to reduce risk for SIB and/or NSSI among Black youth and Black LGBTQ+SGL (Same Gender Loving) youth. This initiative will focus on developmental work that would enhance the probability of success in subsequent larger scale R01 projects.

Given the importance of cultural, social, and contextual factors, the systems-level interventions and strategies that this initiative encourages should account for individual-, family-, community-, provider-, and organizational-level factors to optimize the effectiveness, feasibility, and rapid uptake, implementation, and sustained delivery. This research should also improve connections to treatment and services with proven effectiveness in reducing SIB and/or NSSI, with the goal of making these interventions more available, accessible, and more effectively delivered to Black youth, in a sustained and coordinated way. The research encouraged by this initiative is expected to focus on systems-level interventions and strategies to improve outcomes for Black youth and is not intended to support the development of new screening tools, assessment instruments, or individual-level preventive or therapeutic interventions.

This FOA will utilize the R34 mechanism to support pilot studies that are designed: to examine the feasibility of the research approach, (e.g., feasibility of recruiting and retaining participants, feasibility of data collection); to provide an opportunity to refine and pilot test the experimental protocols, including assessment protocols and the experimental intervention protocol, as relevant; and to yield pilot data necessary for informing next steps and for enhancing the probability of obtaining meaningful results in subsequent, well-powered studies. Investigators focused on testing hypotheses that are supported by pilot data in studies that are powered to definitively answer the primary research questions should reference NOT-MH-21-185.

Applications are not being solicited at this time. 

Please direct all inquiries to:

Denise Juliano-Bult, M.S.W.

National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)

301-443-1638

[email protected]

Crystal Barksdale, Ph.D., MPH
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Telephone: 301-443-7034
Email: [email protected]