Key Dates

NOT-MH-21-187 - Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Systems-Level Risk Detection and Interventions to Reduce Suicide Ideation and Behaviors in Youth from Underserved Populations (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 underserved 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. A number of sub-populations have been identified as having rates of suicide higher than the national average, and many youth from underserved populations are included in that group. For the purposes of this FOA, NIMH uses the following definition of “underserved”:

• Underserved youth include members of minority groups or other individuals experiencing disparities in mental health outcomes, including: Latinx populations, American Indian and Alaska Native populations, refugees, individuals with Limited English Proficiency (LEP), individuals with disabilities, persons from sexual and gender minority groups. Also included are: people living in a geographic area with a shortage of health care services (e.g., rural or frontier areas); groups that face economic barriers to health care; individuals who are homeless or unstably housed; incarcerated, detained, under community supervision, or recently released from detention or incarceration, and youth with serious mental illness (SMI). NOTE: Investigators focused on studies exclusively examining African American/Black youth populations are directed to NOT-MH-21-186.

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 underserved children and adolescents. 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 as appropriate 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 attention to factors that impact availability, accessibility, and fidelity of delivery to underserved youth in a sustained and coordinated way. The research encouraged by this initiative should emphasize systems-level interventions and strategies to improve outcomes for 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-21-187.

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]