Deadline: 13-Jan-2025
The National Center for Healthy Housing has launched its call for the Cancer and Environment Mini-Grants to help communities build capacity and advance scientific understanding of unusual patterns of cancer or efforts to understand potential relationships with environmental hazards.
They are offering these mini-grants to support communities that have concerns about unusual patterns of cancer. Communities will be able to build capacity, make connections with experts who can evaluate cancer data, review existing or new data on environmental hazards, and develop sustainable workplans to facilitate the investigation of cancer and environmental hazards. Grantees will also have opportunities to connect with other communities that have similar concerns.
Phases
- Applicants will be asked to identify their proposal as being in the development or implementation phase, but their status will not affect scoring or final selection. Communities should clearly state their questions related to unusual patterns of cancer and/or environmental concerns.
- If a proposed approach has been identified, they should state that in their proposal.
- Development phase: Communities should identify their proposal as being in the development phase if they need assistance in identifying or prioritizing promising strategies (e.g. obtaining technical assistance (TA) for help obtaining, analyzing, or understanding cancer statistics or environmental data), convening stakeholders to spark collaboration and dialogue, and/or they are in the early stages of the proposed work.
- Implementation phase: Communities should identify their proposal as being in the implementation phase if they have defined priorities (e.g., specific environmental exposure concerns or goals or activities around understanding or engaging with health risk policy or practice) and objectives and/or they have some infrastructure in place to build on to achieve the proposed work.
Benefits
- The selected communities will receive support to advance their local investigations of unusual patterns of cancer and response efforts. These benefits include but may not be limited to the following:
- Coaching and support: Six months of direct support and technical assistance from the Children’s Environmental Health Network, the National Center for Healthy Housing, and other national experts/SMEs who will be invited based on the needs and concerns expressed by the selected communities.
- Peer learning: Opportunities to interact with and learn from other communities tackling similar issues with shared goals to investigate unusual patterns of cancer, and to share successes and challenges.
Funding Information
- Grant award: A $25,000 grant to support activities.
- Grantees will receive coaching and support remotely during the project period (February – July 2025).
Eligible Activities
- Funding should be used to build capacity within a community to address cancer and environmental concerns.
- For this funding opportunity, activities should focus on identifying needs, developing workplans and strategies, and engaging relevant stakeholders and experts to address environmental hazards and unusual patterns of cancer.
- They may propose activities such as obtaining the services of SMEs or convening health and medical officials and academia to begin dialogue about conducting environmental hazard assessments and tracking cancer incidence.
- Other applicants may have been working in this space for a while; they may propose activities that show commitment to ongoing action, such as formation of a coalition representing multiple sectors, sources, and settings or efforts to engage community members in understanding scientific issues.
- Other applicants may propose work that results in ongoing interventions or sustained systems change, such as adoption of the ATSDR Choose Safe Places for Early Care and Education safe siting guidance for childcare facilities.
Eligibility Criteria
- Local, regional, U.S. territorial, tribal, or state nonprofit and/or community-based groups or organizations are eligible to apply for this grant opportunity.
- Organizations must be based in the United States. For-profit organizations are not eligible to apply.
Selection Criteria
- They anticipate selecting a minimum of six communities.
- The National Center for Healthy Housing and the Children’s Environmental Health Network are leading this competitive solicitation, but funding is made possible through a cooperative agreement with the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Application Requirements
- Grantees will have access to on-demand and structured feedback, mentoring, and advice from national experts, including regarding conducting analyses and identifying potential environmental services for investigations. Grantees are required to:
- Participate in a project kick-off webinar.
- Participate in monthly coaching calls with applicable national partners (e.g., SMEs that can help analyze cancer and/or environmental data).
- Submit final-project reporting documentation.
- There will also be optional participation in other activities as needed (e.g., other topic-specific, capacity building webinars or coaching calls with peer mentors).
For more information, visit NCHH.