May 27, 2022
NOT-CA-22-101 - Notice of NCI's Participation in Notice of Special Interest: Administrative Supplement for Research Efforts that Illuminate Fundamental Processes Underlying Behavior Change, Maintenance, and Adherence (Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional) .
NOT-NR-22-014 - Notice of NINR Participation in NOT-OD-22-140, Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Administrative Supplement for Research Efforts that Illuminate Fundamental Processes Underlying Behavior Change, Maintenance, and Adherence (Admin Supp) .
PA-20-272 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)
NOT-HL-22-029 - Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Administrative Supplement for Research Efforts that Illuminate Fundamental Processes Underlying Behavior Change, Maintenance, and Adherence (Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional).
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
National Institute on Aging (NIA)
National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS)
Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)
National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK)
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD)
National Cancer Institute (NCI)
National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute (NHLBI)
National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR)
The NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) within the Office of the Director (OD) Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI) announces the availability of administrative supplements to support research to examine causal, process, or contextual variables that:
- Assess mechanisms of action (MOA) consistent with the application’s hypothesis, those that might elucidate alternative MOA than the primary hypothesis, as well as those variables or processes that might explain a lack of intervention effect.
- Assess underlying causes/MOA explaining behavior change, maintenance of behavior and/or adherence beyond the active intervention period.
- Are hypothesized to be associated with or contributing to (mediators or moderators) an intervention study’s main effect (efficacy) over the course of behavior initiation and maintenance, including measures of adherence.
- Barriers and facilitators of behavior adoption and sustainment over time.
- Contextual information about the intervention delivery system and environmental, social, or community factors that might explain the intervention effectiveness or lack of effect; including assessing differences between those who respond or don t respond to the behavioral intervention.
The need to develop a comprehensive understanding of how and why humans initiate, adopt, and maintain behaviors that impede or promote health and wellbeing is well-documented. The current NOSI encourages use of behavior change theories to inform choice of variables to assess to understand MOA variables to generate both proof of concept and replicable evidence.
Use of behavior change theories and identification of the underlying MOAs corresponds to OBSSR’s priority to facilitate more cumulative, integrated, and synergistic behavioral and social sciences that can be optimized and translated across conditions based not only on the efficaciousness of the intervention but also on data demonstrating that the intervention influenced a unique human mechanism that led to a healthier behavior (https://obssr.od.nih.gov/sites/obssr/files/OBSSR-SP-2017-2021.pdf)
Program Description and Requirements
Understanding the how and why NIH-funded interventions are (or are not) effective will improve our ability to harness behavior change strategies to improve health outcomes and increases collective knowledge regarding how to facilitate behavior initiation, adoption, and maintenance during and after interventions.
This administrative supplement NOSI is designed to provide support to NIH-funded investigators to add assessments to their currently funded project to help illuminate the mechanisms of action, processes, and contextual variables to help better understand why an intervention works or does not work initially and over time. Applicants may propose new analyses that will use the parent project's existing data and, potentially, complementary data with the potential to illuminate MOAs so long as such data remain within original scope of the parent project.
Parent grants that originally posited mechanistic clinical trials as part of their original scientific aims may be eligible for supplemental funding under this NOSI if the supplemental proposes to examine MOAs other than those specified in their original specific aims.
Administrative supplement requests can include quantitative, qualitative, or mixed methods approaches to elucidate novel or underexplored causal, process, or contextual variables that might explain an intervention’s MOAs. For more on mixed methods, see: https://obssr.od.nih.gov/sites/obssr/files/Best_Practices_for_Mixed_Methods_Research.pdf
Applications that are not appropriate for this administrative supplement NOSI include:
- Research projects that do not address a mechanism of action, biopsychosocial process, or contextual factors that are hypothesized to influence behavior change.
- Projects that propose new clinical trials.
Applicants are strongly encouraged to contact the IC Program Officer on their parent grant and the OBSSR Scientific Contact staff listed by scientific areas in Section VII prior to submission of a supplement application to ensure that the content area proposed is consistent with the intent of the NOSI and within the scope of the parent grant.
One-year administrative supplements are available for parent projects that have at least two (2) full years of active funding (excluding no-cost extension periods) remaining at the time of submission. Research proposed in the supplement applications must fall within the broad scope of the parent award.
Application and Submission Information
Applications for this initiative must be submitted using the following opportunity or its subsequent reissued equivalent.
- PA-20-272 - Administrative Supplements to Existing NIH Grants and Cooperative Agreements (Parent Admin Supp Clinical Trial Optional)
All instructions in the SF424 (R&R) Application Guide and PA-20-272 must be followed, with the following additions:
- Application Due Date(s) July 15, 2022, by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization.
- For funding consideration, applicants must include NOT-OD-22-140 (without quotation marks) in the Agency Routing Identifier field (box 4B) of the SF424 R&R form. Applications without this information in box 4B will not be considered for this initiative.
- Requests may be for one year of support only.
- The Research Strategy section of the application is limited to 6 pages.
- Only existing awardees as specified by participating Institutes and Centers are eligible to apply.
- Applicants are strongly encouraged to notify the program contact at the Institute supporting the parent award that a request has been submitted in response to this FOA in order to facilitate efficient processing of the request.
- Additionally, applicants may communicate with the OBSSR contact to determine whether and how a potential supplemental project corresponds with this OBSSR-led NOSI's Background, and Program Description and Requirements.
Please direct inquiries to:
William Elwood, PhD
Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR)
Telephone: 301-402-0116
Email: william.elwood@nih.gov
and Human Services (HHS)
