Behavioral and Social Science Research on Understanding and Reducing Health Disparities

The purpose of this grant is to encourage behavioral and social science research on the causes and solutions to health and disabilities disparities in the U. S. population. Health disparities between, on the one hand, racial/ethnic populations, lower socioeconomic classes, and rural residents and, on the other hand, the overall U.S. population are major public health concerns.

Emphasis is placed on research in and among three broad areas of action: 1) Public policy, 2) health care, and 3) disease/disability prevention. Particular attention is given to reducing health gaps among groups. Proposals that utilize an interdisciplinary approach, investigate multiple levels of analysis, incorporate a life-course perspective, and/or employ innovative methods such as system science or community-based participatory research are particularly encouraged.

Amount: Varies

Date due: May 11, 2013

For more information, click here.

NIH Exploratory/Developmental Grants

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Exploratory/Developmental Grant (R21) funding opportunity supports the development of new research activities in categorical program areas. (Support generally is restricted in level of support and in time.) Investigator-initiated research, also known as unsolicited research, is research funded as a result of an investigator submitting a research grant application to NIH in an investigators area of interest and competency. All investigator-initiated exploratory/developmental applications described in this announcement will be assigned to NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) according to standard Public Health Service (PHS) referral guidelines and specific program interests. Investigators are strongly encouraged to consult the list of participating ICs and special research interests.

The Exploratory/Developmental Grant (R21) mechanism is intended to encourage exploratory and developmental research projects by providing support for the early and conceptual stages of these projects. These studies may involve considerable risk but may lead to a breakthrough in a particular area, or to the development of novel techniques, agents, methodologies, models, or applications that could have a major impact on a field of biomedical, behavioral, or clinical research.

Funds Available and Anticipated Number of Awards. Because the nature and scope of the proposed research will vary from application to application, it is anticipated that the size and duration of each award will also vary. The total amount awarded and the number of awards will depend upon the mechanism, numbers, quality, duration, and costs of the applications received.

Date due: January 25, 2011

For more information, click here.

Statewide Latino Agenda Summit Comes to Salem this October

The Northwest Health Foundatuion is sponsoring a historic two day summit Sunday, October 17 and Monday, October 18 in Salem.

“One United Voice – Una Voz Unida” will be the theme for the event, which will take place at the Salem Conference Center.  The summit will convene Oregon’s Latino leadership to catalyze and coordinate statewide efforts that promote the community’s social and economic well-being, political capacity, and civic leadership. Early registration deadline is Oct. 1.

For more information, visit: www.olaaction.org

Short-Term Research Education Program to Increase Diversity in Health-Related Research

The National Institute of Health (NIH) recognizes a unique and compelling need to promote diversity in the biomedical, behavioral, clinical and social sciences research workforce. The NIH expects efforts to diversify the workforce to lead to the recruitment of the most talented researchers from all groups; to improve the quality of the educational and training environment; to balance and broaden the perspective in setting research priorities; to improve the ability to recruit subjects from diverse backgrounds into clinical research protocols; and to improve the Nations capacity to address and eliminate health disparities. This FOA issued by the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, National Institutes of Health, solicits Research Education (R25) applications from institutions/organizations to promote diversity in undergraduate and health professional student populations by providing short-term research education support to stimulate career development in cardiovascular, pulmonary, and hematologic diseases research.

Amount: $300,000

Date due: September 1, 2010 (letter of intent); October 1, 2010 (proposal)

For more information, click here.

Healthy Living Grants

The American Medical Association (AMA) Foundation is now accepting applications for Healthy Living Grants. The AMA Foundation typically awards between 15-25 grants.

There are three funding categories:

• Nutrition/Physical Fitness: The proposed project must include a least one nutrition objective and at least one physical activity objective.
• Alcohol, Substance Abuse and Smoking Prevention
• Violence Prevention: Anti-bullying, domestic violence (with a focus on providing a safe environment for children), suicide prevention, internet safety

Amount: $5,000

Date Due: Applications must be received at the AMA Foundation Office on or before Thursday, July 15, 2010 at 5:00pm Central Time.

For more information, click here.

Active Living Research: Building Evidence to Prevent Childhood Obesity

Active Living Research is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that supports research to inform policy and environmental strategies for increasing physical activity among children and adolescents, decreasing their sedentary behaviors and preventing obesity. The program places special emphasis on reaching children and youth between the ages of three and 18 who are at highest risk for obesity — black, Latino, American Indian, and Asian/Pacific Islander children, as well as children who live in under-resourced and lower-income communities.

The program has released a call for proposals for opportunistic, time-sensitive studies on emerging or anticipated changes in physical activity-related policies or environments. Rapid-response grants are expected to accelerate progress toward policy and environmental strategies to prevent and reduce childhood obesity. For maximum impact, studies should be completed in as short a time frame as realistically possible and results disseminated using methods designed to reach local, state, or national decision-makers in time to help inform key policy decisions.

Amount: $150,000

Date due: July 1, 2010

For more information, click here.

State Implementation Grants for Improving Services for Children and Youth with with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) and other Developmental Disabilitie

The purpose of this program is to improve access to comprehensive, coordinated health care and related services for children and youth with autism spectrum disorder ASD and other developmental disabilities. Grantees will implement an existing state plan to improve the system of services for children and youth with special health care needs who have ASD and other developmental disabilities as defined by the following components: partnerships between professionals and families of children and youth with ASD, access to a culturally competent family-centered medical home which coordinates care with pediatric subspecialties and community-based services, access to adequate health insurance and financing of services, early and continuous screening for ASD and other developmental disabilities,community services organized for easy use by families, and transition to adult health care.

Amount: $300,000

Date due: June 14, 2010

For more information, click here.

Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism Initiative Grants

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse & Alcoholism (NIAAA) Program Project Initiative provides leadership in conducting and fostering interdisciplinary research on a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to: the nature, causes, consequences, diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of alcohol abuse and alcoholism; and in developing new topics, approaches and methodologies to pursue these areas of research.

Amount: $500,000

Date due: December 2, 2010 (Proposal); November 2, 2010 (Letter of Intent)

For more information, click here.

Kaiser Permanente Community Fund Grants

Kaiser Permanente announces two grant opportunities:

• Capacity-Building Grants are more appropriate for organizations that are new to the health field; are not yet able to clearly articulate how their work would improve community health; need time to develop relationships with other partners; and/or need to engage with their community to develop their implementation strategies and goals.
• Implementation Grants represent the types of projects that are more fully conceived (and in many cases, have already been launched). Implementation Grants are more appropriate for organizations (usually collaborations of several organizations) that are ready to implement a defined plan of action, with a clear expectation of goals and outcomes.

Amount: Varies

Due Date: June 25, 2010

For more information, click here.

Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) -- Increasing Support for Families

The purpose of this program is to enhance support to family members of patients with a suspected or diagnosed case of human prion disease as well as enhance support for national surveillancefor CJD and its emerging variants by (1) providing family members of such patients with easy access to consultations with persons experienced and knowledgeable about practical issues related to this disease, 2) facilitating educational and other mutually beneficial interaction of researchers with family members of CJD patients (3) increasing general awareness about CJD and (4) increasing the number of autopsies of suspected CJD cases.

Amount: $325,000

Date due: April 19, 2010 (Letter of intent); June 4, 2010 (proposal)

For more information, click here.

Fostering Interdisciplinary Research on Education (FIRE)

FIRE is a new strand of the Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE) program (NSF 09-601) and it is anticipated that after this first competition, FIRE will be incorporated into the REESE solicitation. The FIRE program seeks to facilitate the process by which scholars can cross disciplinary boundaries to acquire the skills and knowledge that would improve their abilities to conduct rigorous research on STEM learning and education.

The primary goal of the strand is to facilitate the development of innovative theoretical, methodological, and analytic approaches to understanding complex STEM education issues of national importance and, by so doing, make progress toward solving them. A secondary goal of the strand is to broaden and deepen the pool of investigators engaged in STEM educational research. In order to address this goal, investigators must pair with a mentoring scientist in a to-be-learned field of interest. Proposals therefore have both a research and a professional development component. Investigators may apply at any point in their post-graduate careers.

Amount: $400,000 (across two years)

Date due: May 20, 2010

For more information, click here.

Behavioral and Social Science Research on Understanding and Reducing Health Disparities

The purpose of this NIH grant is to encourage behavioral and social science research on the causes and solutions to health and disabilities disparities in the U. S. population. Health disparities between, on the one hand, racial/ethnic populations, lower socioeconomic classes, and rural residents and, on the other hand, the overall U.S. population are major public health concerns. Emphasis is placed on research in and among three broad areas of action: 1) public policy, 2) health care, and 3) disease/disability prevention. Particular attention is given to reducing health gaps among groups. Proposals that utilize an interdisciplinary approach, investigate multiple levels of analysis, incorporate a life-course perspective, and/or employ innovative methods such as system science or community-based participatory research are particularly encouraged.

Date due: May 11, 2010

Amount: Varies

For more information, click here.

Social Network Analysis and Health (NIH)

Social networks are social structures comprised of nodes, which can be individuals, organizations, or even societies. In a social network, nodes are tied to each other based on a type of social relationship, such as friendship, kinship, sexual contact, or economic exchange. Social network analysis (SNA) is the measuring, mapping, analyzing, and interpretation of social network structures, the ties between nodes, and the flows that occur within and across networks. Information, disease pathogens, ideas, money, and many other things can flow across networks. The goal of this funding announcement is to advance the science of SNA in ways that will enhance its utility for understanding and addressing public health issues. This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) calls for research with the potential to advance and expand the utility of SNA and methods in studies of health and disease. This FOA is not intended to encourage proposals on the development of intervention strategies that operate on social networks, but rather to strengthen basic science knowledge on which intervention strategies may later be based.

Social network analysis allows researchers to describe, integrate, and analyze spatial, mathematical, and substantive dimensions of the social structures formed as a result of ties formed between persons, organizations, or other types of nodes. Researchers can represent networks graphically, locate them spatially, and describe and analyze their properties mathematically. These spatial and mathematical relations (i.e., “networks”) can then be related to the content and quality of interpersonal ties, individual or group phenotypes and behaviors, and the well-being and dynamics of groups and communities. SNA can be used to yield more meaningful measures of social integration in studies focusing on individual outcomes and to investigate the social dynamics underlying community function and population health. SNA can be used to study the transmission of viral infections, behaviors, attitudes, information, or the diffusion of medical practices.

Date due: May 3, 2010 (Letter of intent); June 3, 2010 (Proposal)

Amount: varies

For more information, click here.

Building Research Infrastructure and Capacity Grant for Undergraduate Institutions

The National Center on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NCMHD) encourages grant applications from non-research intensive institutions that propose to build, strengthen and/or enhance the research infrastructure and research training capacity of their institution. Each NCMHD Building Research Infrastructure and Capacity (BRIC) grant application must have a plan to establish a research capacity-building infrastructure program. This plan must include benchmarks, for training students and developing a cadre of clinical, biomedical and behavioral research junior scientists who possess the skills, knowledge and abilities to engage in leading edge research that ultimately will contribute to reducing and eliminating health disparities in the United States.

Amount: $650,000/year

Due date: April 21, 2010 (Letter of intent); May 21, 2010 (Proposal)

For more information, click here.

NIH Small Research Grants focusing on Childhood Obesity

The National Institute of Health (NIH) invites exploratory pilot/feasibility study and small clinical trial (R21) applications from institutions/organizations that propose to test novel home or family based interventions for the prevention or management of overweight in infancy and early childhood. Tested interventions can use behavioral (including dietary and physical activity), environmental, or other relevant approaches. Applications should focus on infants and young children (to age six years) and emphasize the role of home environment and the influence of family/extended family members and parents (including guardians/substantial care-providers) within the childs home environment. The direct goal of this initiative is to fund research that will advance knowledge for innovative approaches to the prevention or management of overweight in children less than 6 years of age, with potential for future research clinical trial applications either in the home or linked to a community setting. Research should consider the role of families in the initiation, support, and reinforcement of fundamental food and beverage consumption, physical activity practices, and sedentary behaviors. In addition it is of interest to elucidate various underlying behavioral determinants that are crucial to initiate or sustain changes in behaviors that impact energy balance. Research designs may include linkages with other settings (e.g., daycare, pre-school, or other community venues) or other care providers (e.g., health care providers or teachers) but must include infants or children less than age six years as the primary study participant along with parents, and/or other family members residing with the child. The overarching goal is to identify interventions that influence parent and child behaviors that contribute to inappropriate weight gain, and thereby improve subsequent health status in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood for which overweight is a known risk factor.

Amount: $200,000

Date due: May 7, 2010

For more information, click here.

Active Living Research Grants

A program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Active Living Research supports research to inform policy and environmental strategies for increasing physical activity among children and adolescents, decreasing their sedentary behaviors, and preventing obesity.

The program places special emphasis on strategies with the potential to reach children and youths between the ages of 3 and 18 who are at highest risk for obesity — African American, Latino, American Indian, Alaska Native, Asian American, and Pacific Islander children, as well as children who live in underresourced and lower-income communities.

Grants funded under this Call for Proposals are expected to advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015. This CFP consists of grant opportunities for specified research topics and dissertation awards. It also includes funding opportunities for New Connections grants made available through the Active Living Research program.

Amount: Varies

Date due: April 14, 2010

For more information, click here.

Susan G Komen Council of Advisors

Susan G. Komen for the Cure is establishing a new Council of Advisors of fifty experts from a variety of medical and scientific backgrounds to broaden the organization's investment in research, community programs, scientific peer review, and public policy.

Individuals will serve as either full or associate council members. Full members will be established senior scholars and leaders in the field of breast cancer who have already made significant contributions to the field. Associate members will be independent investigators and scientists between five and twelve years past their fellowship training who demonstrate significant promise of making important contributions to and leading the field of breast cancer.

As distinguished scholars, full council members will be awarded a $250,000 Komen research grant, while associate council members will receive a $175,000 Komen research grant annually for the duration of their two-year term. Grants must be used to study critical questions in breast cancer and will require an annual project description and annual progress and financial reports.

Date due: March 1, 2010

For more information, click here.

NIH Research Conference Grant (Interdisciplinary Teams)

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages Research Conference Grant (R13)applications from institutions and organizations that propose to develop interdisciplinary research teams. Teams must include investigators from the social and/or behavioral sciences, and may include the life and/or physical sciences. The goal is to broaden the scope of investigation into scientific problems, yield fresh and possibly unexpected insights, and increase the sophistication of theoretical, methodological, and analytical approaches by integrating the analytical strengths of two or more disparate scientific disciplines while addressing gaps in terminology, approach, and methodology. This program will allow investigators from multiple disciplines to hold meetings in order to provide the foundation for developing interdisciplinary research projects.

Amount: Varies

Date due: April 12, 2010; August 12, 2010

For more information, click here.

Physical Therapy & Mobility Grant

The Foundation for Physical Therapy, an independent nonprofit organization with the mission of funding physical therapy research, is accepting applications for a new two-year, $300,000 grant.

The Clagett Family Research Grant is intended to fund research on interventions that use exercise to improve mobililty and participation in older adults with multiple chronic conditions. The foundation encourages collaborative and multidisciplinary teams to apply for a grant.

Proposals may be submitted by a single investigator or a group of investigators through a U.S. sponsoring organization/institution with which they are affiliated.

Amount: $300,000

Date due: March 1, 2010 (Letter of intent)

For more information, click here.

Communities Creating Healthy Environments

Communities Creating Healthy Environments is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation that aims to prevent childhood obesity by increasing access to healthy foods and safe places to play in communities of color. The program is designed to advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015 by supporting diverse, community-based organizations and federally chartered tribal nations in the development and implementation of effective, culturally competent policy initiatives to address childhood obesity at the local level.

Eligible applicants must have a track record of at least two years of successful community organizing and policy advocacy to address health-related problems in communities of color. Both the leadership and membership or constituencies of any applicant organization should reflect the communities they seek to serve. Youth-led organizing groups and community-based groups with youth-organizing components are strongly encouraged to apply.

Amount: $250,000

Date due: February 25, 2010

For more information, click here.

Promoting Partnerships to Strengthen Health Care Reform informational meeting

On January 21, Northwest Health Foundation will release a request for proposals (RFP) entitled Promoting Partnerships to Strengthen Health Care Reform Advocacy. We hope the projects funded through this grant cycle will increase the presence of diverse voices in health care reform policy discussions. The Foundation is particularly interested in applications that incorporate innovative partnerships between organizations.

In order to give applicants the opportunity learn more about the RFP and cultivate potential partners, we will be hosting the following informational meeting:

Wednesday, January 27 from 2:30 p.m to 5:00 p.m (reception to follow) Northwest Health Foundation

221 NW Second Ave., Suite 300, Portland

It is not a requirement to attend this meeting prior to submission of a grant proposal.

Because space is limited, only one person per organization may participate and an RSVP is required to attend. If you'd like to attend, please send your name, your organization and your organization's mission statement to Chris DeMars (cdemars@nwhf.org) no later than Wednesday, January 20.

NCAA Choices Grants to Reduce Alcohol Abuse on College Campus

The NCAA CHOICES program provides funding for NCAA member institutions and conferences to integrate athletics into campus-wide efforts to reduce alcohol abuse. NCAA CHOICES projects must partner athletics with other campus departments in the development and implementation of effective alcohol-education projects. Collaboration between the athletics department and other campus organizations involved in alcohol education is a vital element of an NCAA CHOICES project.

Amount: Grant funds to any one program will not exceed $15,000 for the first year,

$10,000 for the second year and $5,000 for the final year of the grant.

Date due: February 16, 2010

For more information, click here.

International Sports Programming Initiative

The Office of Citizen Exchanges of the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs announces an open competition for the International Sports Programming Initiative. Proposals are sought for projects designed to reach out to youth and promote mutual understanding by increasing the professional capacity of those who design and manage youth sports programs in select countries in Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, the Near East and North Africa, South and Central Asia, Europe, and the Western Hemisphere. The focus of all programs must be on reaching out to both male and female youth ages 7-17 and/or their coaches/ administrators.

Amount: $225,000

Date due: March 12, 2010

Proposal themes are (1) Training Sport Coaches; (2) Youth Sports Management; (3) Sport and Disability; and, (4) Sport and Health.

For more information, click here.