Deadline: 22 February 2017
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking proposals for its program titled “Innovations for Healthy Living – Improving Population Health and Eliminating Health Disparities”.
The purpose of this funding opportunity is to engage small business concerns (SBC) in developing technologies and products that engage, empower, and motivate individuals and communities, including providers and healthcare institutions, in sustainable health promoting activities and interventions that lead to improved health, healthcare delivery, and the elimination of health disparities in one or more NIH-defined health disparity population group(s).
Objectives
The proposed technology should improve health through increased opportunities for enhanced access to:
- Healthcare institutions and providers, including those in geographically remote or physically difficult to access locations;
- New or increased patient populations especially, those located in geographically remote or physically difficult to access locations;
- Medical and health knowledge through increased opportunities for individuals with limited English proficiency or low health, food or media literacy;
- Diverse medical and non-medical providers and organizations, including medical specialists, appropriately resourced small or large centers with access to advanced medical technologies, and organizations dedicated to health promotion through access to nutritious food, such as farmer’s markets, etc.;
- Publicly available resources including free and/or affordable and sustainable insurance coverage, enrollment in social safety net programs, such as the women, infants, and children special supplemental nutrition program (WIC), Medicaid, social security, school meals, etc.;
- Healthcare delivered in culturally acceptable and respectful manners and in safe environments; and
- Quality healthcare appropriately priced for diverse providers, hospitals, community-health care centers, primary care physicians, etc., and patients.
Areas of Interest
Technologies that might achieve the objectives of this initiative include but are not limited to:
- Innovative products or services that facilitate or enhance multi-sectorial or multigenerational interventions, such as coordinated enrollment or delivery of benefits and services, or care coordination between primary care providers, hospital emergency department staff, specialty physicians, nurse practitioners, providers of mental health and behavioral health services, patient navigators, nutrition counselors, etc., in medically underserved communities and regions;
- Culturally attuned behavioral interventions or low-cost tools and technologies (e.g. software apps for mobile devices) that empower and promote opportunities for individuals and communities to engage in health-seeking behaviors (healthy eating and cooking, diet choice, grocery shopping, meal planning and budgeting, nutrition counseling, exercise/physical activity, oral hygiene, medication adherence, child immunizations, breast feeding, etc.) and to avoid risky behaviors (smoking, alcohol/drug misuse, unsafe sex, etc.);
- Tools, technologies, and methods for detecting, measuring, and assessing a broad array of unhealthy social and environmental exposures (stress, pollutants, allergens, noise, crime, etc.), and for characterizing cumulative exposures to these environments (exposomes) for individuals and communities and linking this information to physiological responses and health indicators at the individual and population levels. These technologies may include efforts to improve data collection and data integration across disparate data sources, including clinical patient data, public health data, census data, housing data, employment data, crime statistics, etc., and overcome data/information barriers and thus increase opportunities and ease of use electronic and digitized data;
- Technologies increasing ease of learning about and applying for supplemental nutrition benefits, enrolling children for school meals and meeting eligibility requirements for Medicaid, are of priority interest;
- Products or services that expand opportunities to access and utilize high-quality pre or postnatal care, including nutrition promotion and breastfeeding support, and thereby reduce the frequency of high-risk pregnancies in health disparities populations;
- Products or services that engage, empower, and motivate individuals and communities to enhance the quality of life and reduce health disparities;
- Culturally appropriate survey instruments, tools, modules and databases to promote community-based research engaging racial/ethnic minorities, rural and other medically underserved communities;
- Culturally appropriate, evidence-based health empowering promotion and disease prevention educational media such as software, informational videos, printed materials for health disparities populations and disadvantaged communities;
- Innovative software, tools and technology for promoting healthy food selection, preparation, and consumption, community gardening, nutrition, cooking, and science and health education, such as curriculum materials, interactive teaching aids, models for classroom instruction for early childhood, K-12, undergraduate students, and the general public;
- Mobile health (mHealth), mobile nutrition, and telehealth/telemedicine technologies and apps for communication, diagnosis, monitoring, evaluation, medical management, tracking and treatment in underserved community settings and rural and remote locations;
- Groundbreaking products or technology to promote big data science or enhance data scientist training to address health inequities and/or minority health research, for example software or tools developed to easily link social determinants of health (e.g., years of education, race/ethnicity, etc.) with massive datasets such as electronic medical record (EMR), genomic information, census data, national surveys, and other state or community-level data sources. Such technology will be instrumental in understanding fundamental causes of health disparities and developing meaningful interventions; and
- Technologies for the rapid identification in human specimens (e.g., blood, buccal swabs, etc.) of genes and/or genomic variants of known importance to minority health.
Award Information
NIMHD intends to commit $1,000,000 in FY 2017 to fund 3-4 awards.
Eligibility Criteria
- Only United States small business concerns (SBCs) are eligible to submit applications for this opportunity. A small business concern is one that, at the time of award of Phase I and Phase II, meets all of the following criteria:
- Is organized for profit, with a place of business located in the United States, which operates primarily within the United States or which makes a significant contribution to the United States economy through payment of taxes or use of American products, materials or labor;
- Is in the legal form of an individual proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company, corporation, joint venture, association, trust or cooperative, except that where the form is a joint venture, there must be less than 50 percent participation by foreign business entities in the joint venture;
- Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are not eligible to apply.
- Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply.
- Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, may be allowed.
How to Apply
Eligible applicants must apply online via given website.
Eligible Country: United States
For more information, please visit Grants.gov.