Deadline: 4-Jul-23
The U.S. Administration for Community Living (ACL) plans to award a cooperative agreement to a single entity to serve as ACL’s Innovation Lab (the Lab) to conduct research, demonstrations, and evaluations pertaining to falls prevention amongst older adults and older adults with disabilities.
The successful recipient must demonstrate their capacity to work collaboratively with relevant stakeholders to conduct several activities including but not limited to:
- Develop a taxonomy for falls prevention research through an in-depth review of falls prevention literature that allows for a structured approach to data collection;
- Based on that taxonomy, collaborate with ACL to develop relevant research questions and methods for conducting research using core components; community- driven/community-based participatory research on falls prevention and falls risk factors; and structured (quantitative) data and unstructured (qualitative) data collection for subawardees;
- Fund a cohort of sub-awardees that comprise community-based aging and disabilityfocused entities to pilot these approaches in order to understand and measure the extent to which existing interventions reduce falls and falls risk factors for falls;
- Provide technical assistance (TA) to sub-awardees on core components, participatory research designs to measure outcomes, and structured data collection using a relational database;
The purpose of this funding announcement is to create an ACL Innovation Lab (“the Lab”) that facilitates the development and scaling of effective practices that promote health and reduce injury among older adults and older adults with disabilities. They achieve this purpose, the Lab, with ACL’s direction and in collaboration with relevant stakeholders, will: Develop a taxonomy for falls prevention research through an in-depth review of falls prevention literature that allows for a structured approach to data collection. Develop relevant research questions and methods, based on that taxonomy, for conducting research using two approaches: core components and community-driven/community-based participatory research on falls prevention and related risk factors.
Develop a secure, dynamic system to house the data collected and evidence developed by sub-awardees, complying with ACL’s public access plan and policy in regards to scientific or research data collected as a result of this funding. Fund a cohort of community-based aging and disability service sub-awardees to pilot these approaches, in order to understand and measure the extent to which existing interventions reduce falls and related risk factors for falls. Provide technical assistance to sub-awardees on core components, participatory research designs to measure outcomes, and structured data collection. Conduct both predictive and data analysis on research findings, and disseminate findings. Promote the scaling and sustainability of effective practices that promote health and reduce injury specific to falls prevention and related risk factors.
Program Goals
- Part I: Develop a Taxonomy for Falls Prevention Research
- Develop a taxonomy for falls prevention research through an in-depth review of falls prevention literature that allows for a structured approach to data collection as referenced above. Based on that taxonomy, the awardee will develop relevant research questions and methods for conducting research interventions using both core components and community-driven/community-based participatory research on falls prevention and falls risk factors.
- Part II: Develop or Build Upon an Existing System to House Research from Sub-Awards
- Data from research should be available publicly on this site in order to allow for other researchers and programs to build on the data and evidence once cleaned and de-identified. If the applicant has a system in place to house data collected from the research from sub-awardees and results from the taxonomy aligns with ACL’s public access plan and ACL and HHS’ secure guidelines, then that system should suffice. Applicants should clearly describe their plans for the development of the database or any existing system if already in place.
- Part III: Develop and Implement Sub-awards to Aging Network
- A central deliverable in Year Two will be the disbursement of sub-awards to the Aging Network. The applicant will fund a cohort of up to 15 sub-awards to community-based aging and disability-focused entities to conduct research, in collaboration with and the support of the Lab, using core components and community-based participatory approaches in order to understand and measure the extent to which existing interventions reduce falls and falls risk factors for falls.
- Part IV: Analysis, Sustainability, and Technical Assistance
- The responsibility of the Innovation Lab will be to serve as a national focal point to provide technical assistance to scale and support new and existing research and evidence for falls prevention and falls risk factors, with an emphasis on organizations in ACL’s aging and disability networks. The Lab will also provide technical assistance to sub-awardees on core components, participatory research designs to measure outcomes, and structured data collection for the required research conducted. The Lab will also provide technical assistance to potential sub-awardees on capacity to apply for the sub-awards.
- The Lab will track technical assistance needs and requests to identify and address common needs and challenges amongst sub-awardees, as well as to identify potential technical assistance topics that may be relevant for sub-awardees, which could include:
- Developing sub-awardees in geographies without existing capacity to implement evidence-based falls prevention research
- Assistance on core components research and structured data collection
- Information technology infrastructure to support structured data collection
- Equitable approaches to conducting research
- Cultural competence in conducting research
Core Components
- Behaviors of those implementing (e.g., how staff interact with older adults)
- Features of the relationships or environment in an organization (e.g., ableist culture)
- Activities in a program
- How a program is delivered (e.g., in-person vs. virtual), or the amount of activity (e.g., dosage)
Funding Information
- Estimated Total Funding: $4,790,000
- Expected Number of Awards: 1
- Award Ceiling: $4,790,000
- Award Floor: $4,790,000
- Length of Project Period: 36-month project and budget period
Eligibility Criteria
- County governments
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- State governments
- Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Private institutions of higher education
- City or township governments
- Independent school districts
- Special district governments
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Foreign entities are not eligible to compete for, or receive, awards made under this announcement.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
