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The Office of Rural Health Policy (ORHP) will fund a cooperative agreement to support a Rural Assistance Center (RAC). The RAC is a gateway to information on rural health for residents in rural areas of the United States and for all others interested in the issue. Through daily interactions and responding to inquiries and concerns, the RAC will be able to ensure that ORHP and the Department of Health and Human Services are informed of developing and ongoing grass-roots issues in the rural U.S. The role of ORHP as the Department of Health and Human Service¿s focal point for rural information allows its staff to identify key regulatory and statutory issues. The staff of ORHP will work collaboratively with the RAC to prioritize key issues and develop information resources to share with callers and web users. It is also expected that RAC staff will produce publications to respond to emerging issues. ORHP and Department staff will review RAC proposals for publications to ensure that critical issues are appropriately identified. When publications are prepared for release, ORHP and Department staff will review them for accuracy and completeness. The awardee must be able to identify and facilitate access to information from a wide range of sources that deal with aspects of rural health care. ORHP will also coordinate information sharing between the RAC and the Rural Health Research Centers, the Rural Recruitment and Retention Network, State Offices of Rural Health, and other projects that are funded by the Office. RAC staff will work with ORHP to develop strategies for dissemination of key research findings and for providing synthesis of key research findings. The applicant should be familiar with providers of Technical Assistance (TA) for rural health care providers funded by ORHP and be able to make referrals, avoid duplication of services, and ensure that rural residents are directed to appropriate resources for their information needs. The awardee will provide

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is announcing the availability of funds under this grant program to assist researchers in conducting health services research for 2013. The purpose of the Hispanic grant program is to implement Hispanic health services research activities to meet the needs of diverse CMS beneficiary populations. The grant program is designed to: 1) encourage health services and health disparities researchers to pursue research issues which impact Hispanic Medicare, Medicaid, and Children Health Insurance Program (CHIP) health services issues, 2) conduct outreach activities to apprise Hispanic researchers of funding availability to conduct research-related issues affecting Hispanic communities to expand the pool of applicants applying for such grants, 3) assist CMS in implementing its mission focusing on health care quality and improvement for its beneficiaries, 4) support extramural research in health care capa city development activities for the Hispanic communities, 5) promote research that will be aimed at developing a better understanding of health care services issues pertaining to Hispanics, and 6) foster an network for communication and collaboration regarding Hispanic health care issues.

The purpose of this NOFO is to provide a forum that should make it possible for state and federal agencies to work together and apply their limited resources to address radiological health issues of mutual interest. This project will be accomplished by a multi-faceted approach that includes joint working groups assigned to specific issues, participation at annual meetings for presentations and discussion of issues of mutual interest, new developments in the field, upcoming challenges and recommendations, along with training and workshops for keeping state and federal regulatory personnel informed and educated on new technologies, issues, and regulatory procedures. The goal of the guidance, recommendations, suggested regulations, and exchange of information is to increase the available tools, knowledge, and capabilities for radiological health staff throughout the country. As a result of the increased capability to assure radiation protection, a reduction in the risk of illness and deaths associated with unnecessary radiation exposure will occur.

The Lesbian Health Fund (LHF), a program of GLMA: Health Professionals Advancing LGBT Equality, was established in 1992 to define, study, and educate lesbians and their health care providers about lesbian health issues. LHF's mission is to improve the health of lesbians, other sexual minority women (SMW) and their families through research. Research areas include: Understanding social, family, and interpersonal influences as sources of stress or support Eliminating inequalities in health care, including barriers to care, and improving quality of care and utilization rates Development and testing of interventions to address mental and physical health needs of lesbians and other SMW, including but not limited to depression, identity related issues, eating disorders, substance abuse, obesity, cancer risks, cardiovascular disease and sexually transmitted infections Sexual and reproductive health, including family & parenting issues The deadlines for receipt of applications are May 15 and October 15.

Pursuant to the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended (FAA), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) requests applications from qualified and eligible organizations to manage and implement the TRANSFORM/PRIMARY HEALTH CARE UNIT (PHCU) as described in Section I of this RFA. The overall goal of the program is to support the Government of Ethiopia (GOE) through the implementation of its new Health Sector Transformation Plan (HSTP) to End Preventable Child and Maternal Deaths (EPCMD). This RFA is issued in accordance with the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended, and the Grants and Cooperative Agreement Act of 1977. This is a full and open competition, under which any type of organization, large or small, commercial (for profit) firms, faith-based, and non-profit organizations in partnerships or consortia from geographical code 935, are eligible to compete. In accordance with the Federal Grants and Cooperative Agreement Act, USAID encourages competition in order to identify and fund the best possible applications to achieve its program objectives. While for-profit firms may participate, pursuant to 22 CFR 226.81, it is USAID policy not to award profit under assistance instruments such as cooperative agreements. However, all reasonable, allocable, and allowable expenses, both direct and indirect, which are related to the grant program and are in accordance with applicable cost standards (22 CFR 226, OMB Circular A-122 for non-profit organization, OMB Circular A-21 for universities, and the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 31 for-profit organizations), may be paid under the Cooperative Agreement. Using a "Design and Implement" approach, USAID anticipates issuing one mission-specific Leader Award under a Leader with Associates (LWA) arrangement. An LWA arrangement involves the issuance of a grant or cooperative agreement ("Leader Award") that covers a specified regional activity. The Leader Award includes language that all

This announcement solicits applications for the Rural Health Care Coordination Network Partnership Program (Care Coordination Program). The purpose of the Rural Health Care Coordination Network Partnership Program is to support the development of formal, mature rural health networks that focus on care coordination activities for the following chronic conditions: diabetes, congestive heart failure (CHF) and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). Care coordination in the primary care practice involves deliberately organizing patient care activities and sharing information among all of the participants concerned with a patient¿s care to achieve safer and more effective care. Rural Americans are unhealthier, with higher rates of chronic illnesses, such as diabetes, CHF, and COPD and have higher rates of high-risk behaviors such as smoking, physical inactivity, and poor nutrition.[1],[2],[3],[4] These high-risk behaviors cause many of the illnesses, suffering and deaths due to chronic diseases and conditions.[5] The increasing prevalence of chronic diseases and the high cost of health care in the U.S. bring treatment of the ¿whole¿ person to the forefront, especially as there are often psychosocial (psychological and social) issues related to chronic diseases; for example, there is a link between diabetes and depression. In addition, more mental health problems are seen in the primary care setting than other health care settings; thus, integrating behavioral health care into primary care helps address both the physical and psychosocial aspects of health and wellness. Reviews and reports from the Agency for Healthcare Quality and Research (AHRQ) have shown a positive impact from integrating a team approach to care for a variety of disease conditions.[6] Health care coordination for people living with chronic conditions is vital to providing high quality care, especially in rural areas where access to health care is an issue. The main goal of care coordi

In September 2000, the Pew Environmental Health Commission issued a report entitled “America’s Environmental Health Gap: Why the Country Needs a Nationwide Health Tracking Network.” In this report, the Commission documented that the existing environmental health systems were inadequate and fragmented and recommended a “Nationwide Health Tracking Network for disease and exposures.” In response to the report, Congress appropriated funds in the fiscal year 2002’s budget for the CDC to address this issue. What is Environmental Public Health Tracking? Environmental Public Health Tracking (Tracking) is the integrated surveillance of health, exposure, and hazard information and data from a variety of national, state, and local sources. These systems are critical in preventing and controlling disease in populations. Having accurate and timely tracking data permits public health authorities to determine temporal and spatial trends in disease and potential environmental exposures, identify populations most affected, and develop and assess the effectiveness of policy and environmental public health interventions. Tracking involves the utilization of data and information regarding health outcomes, environmental hazards, and human exposures, or a combination of them, and provides important information for public health practice. The availability of these types of data in a standardized network will enable researchers, public health authorities, healthcare practitioners, and the public to have a better understanding about the possible associations between the environment and adverse health effects. What is the National Tracking Network? A key characteristic of Tracking is the emphasis on data integration across health, human exposure, and hazard information systems. The National Tracking Network (Tracking Network) provides the United States with standardized data from multiple health, exposure, and hazard information systems that includes linka

This notice announces the opportunity to apply for funding under the National Rural Health Policy, Community, and Collaboration Program. The purpose of this program is to identify, engage, educate, and collaborate with rural stakeholders on national rural health policy issues and promising practices in an effort to improve the health of people living in rural communities nationwide. Program objectives include: (1) Identifying and educating rural stakeholders about national policy issues and promising practices for rural health. (2) Maintaining projects that will help support engagement of rural communities in a broad range of activities. (3) Facilitating partnerships and collaborations at the local, regional, state, and national levels to improve the exchange of information and promising practices that support rural health. (4) Identifying and promoting broader collaborative federal efforts to support, promote, and address unique rural health issues. A successful program will continue to build upon the federally funded resources that currently exist, leverage the broad network of rural health organizations and individual subject matter experts, and provide a mechanism for the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) to engage with public rural health stakeholders beyond Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funded award recipients and current partners to add value, information, and support to rural communities.

The Environmental Justice Small Grants (EJSG) Program provides funding directly to community-based organizations for projects that help residents of underserved communities understand and address local environmental and public health issues. For purposes of this announcement, the term "underserved community" refers to a community with environmental justice concerns and/or vulnerable populations, including minority, low income, rural, tribal, indigenous, and homeless populations that may be disproportionately impacted by environmental harms and risks. In general, the EJSG program awards grants that support community-driven projects designed to engage, educate, and empower communities to better understand local environmental and public health issues and develop strategies for addressing those issues, building consensus in the community, and setting community priorities. Community-driven projects are projects that include activities where community residents and/or representatives are integrally involved in the thinking behind and execution of those activities. Therefore, applying organizations should have a direct connection to the underserved community impacted by environmental harms and risks.

The Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) has issued a funding announcement for Improving Methods for Conducting Patient-Centered Outcomes Research. Under this call, grants of up to 750,000 over three years will be awarded in support of projects that address important methodological gaps and lead to improvements in the strength and quality of evidence generated by PCOR/CER studies. PCORI has identified the following areas of interest as programmatic priorities: Methods Related to Ethical and Human Subjects Protections (HSP) Issues in PCOR/CER - Projects that address important ethical and HSP issues related to the conduct of PCOR/CER. Applications in this category must include an empirical component. PCORI will give preference to proposals that seek to develop or test new approaches rather than those that conduct primarily descriptive work.

The objectives of this research are to 1. Define and quantify the health and safety issues facing public transit workers. These include, but are not limited to, behaviors that affect health and safety (sleep, exercise, diet, smoking, seat belt use, alcohol use), chronic diseases (diabetes, cardio-vascular disease, hearing loss), communicable diseases, labor environment, organizational issues (safety climate, organizational programs, policies and procedures, support at work), organization of work (shiftwork, job discretion, job demands), and access to health-promoting activities and healthcare; 2. Using existing information resources, estimate the costs associated with employee health issues; and characterize to the degree possible how these costs are distributed to individuals, transit agencies, and society; 3. Identify and describe scalable and sustainable strategies successfully implemented in transit agencies; and 4. Identify and evaluate potential methods for measuring cost-benefits and cost-effectiveness of these programs to individuals, transit agencies, and society.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages applications to study the ethical, legal and societal issues (ELSI) of human genome research in African populations.  Of particular interest are projects that propose focused bioethical, legal, and social science analyses of new or emerging issues. 

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages applications to study the ethical, legal and societal issues (ELSI) of human genome research in African populations. Of particular interest are projects that propose focused bioethical, legal, and social science analyses of new or emerging issues.

The purpose of this NOFO is to support a mechanism to obtain timely input from nationally representative samples of (a) healthcare providers and (b) the public on critical immunization issues of importance. The objectives of this research are (1) for each year of the project, to conduct multiple surveys of providers and the public to collect immunization-related data using scientifically sound methods with adequate response rates that produce generalizable results, and (2) to disseminate those results broadly to assist in (a) informing recommendations for new vaccines, (b) developing strategies to improve immunization coverage, and (c) instituting contingency plans to address urgent problems (e.g., vaccine supply shortages). Surveyed providers should include pediatricians, family physicians, obstetrician/gynecologists, general internists, or some combination of these physician specialties. Surveyed members of the public should be ≥18 years old and should include subpopulations of special interest for consideration of immunization-related issues such as pregnant women, parents of children aged 0 to 5 years, and persons with chronic medical conditions.

HRSA is pleased to provide this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) for the Targeted Issues Demonstration Projects.  Support is available from the Division of Child, Adolescent, and Family Health (DCAFH), part of the Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) of the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).  Please read the entire FOA carefully before completing the application. The Emergency Medical Services for Children (EMSC) program works to ensure that critically ill and injured children receive optimal pediatric emergency care.  This FOA for the Targeted Issues grants is intended to invite applications that will improve the care provided by Emergency Medical Services (EMS) providers for critically ill and injured children.  Applicants should address specific needs in the field of prehospital pediatric emergency care that transcend State boundaries.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) solicits grant applications proposing exploratory research projects focused on the early-stage development of highly innovative technologies that improve the quality of the samples used for cancer research or clinical care. This includes new capabilities to address issues related to pre-analytical degradation of targeted analytes during the collection, processing, handling, and/or storage of cancer-relevant biospecimens. The overall goal is to support the development of highly innovative technologies capable of maximizing or otherwise interrogating the quality and utility of biological samples used for downstream analyses. This FOA will support the development of tools, devices, instrumentation, and associated methods to preserve or protect sample integrity, or establish verification criteria for quality assessment/quality control and handling under diverse conditions. These technologies are expected to accelerate and/or enhance research in cancer biology, early detection and screening, clinical diagnosis, treatment, epidemiology, or address issues associated with cancer health disparities, by reducing pre-analytical variations that affect biospecimen sample quality.

The purpose of these cooperative agreements is to further IHS health program objectives in the AI/AN community with expanded outreach and education efforts for the MSPI and HIV/AIDS programs on a national scale and in the interest of improving Indian health care. This announcement includes two separate awards, each of which will be awarded as noted below. The purpose of the MSPI award is to further the goals of the national MSPI program. The MSPI is a national demonstration project aimed at addressing the dual problems of methamphetamine use and suicide in Indian Country. The MSPI supports an AI/AN community driven focus on the utilization and development of evidence-based and practice-based intervention models that promote a culturally appropriate prevention, treatment, and postvention approach to methamphetamine use and suicide. The six goals of the MSPI are to effectively prevent, reduce, or delay the use and/or spread of methamphetamine use; build on the foundation of prior methamphetamine and suicide prevention and treatment efforts in order to support the IHS, Tribes, and urban Indian health organizations in developing and implementing Tribal and/or culturally appropriate methamphetamine and suicide prevention and early intervention strategies; increasing access to methamphetamine and suicide prevention services; improving services for behavioral health issues associated with methamphetamine use and suicide prevention; promoting the development of new and promising services that are culturally and community relevant; and demonstrating efficacy and impact. The purpose of the HIV/AIDS award is to further the goals of the national HIV/AIDS program. HIV and AIDS are a critical and growing health issue within the AI/AN population. The IHS National HIV/AIDS Program seeks to avoid complacency and to increase awareness of the impact of HIV/AIDS on AI/ANs. All activities are part of the IHS's implementation plan to meet the three goals of the President's National HIV/A

Since the 1990s the congressional budget has included funds for the the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to reduce or prevent the complications of hemophilia and other congenital bleeding disorders. Since 1996 the CDC has funded the federal network of hemophilia treatment centers (HTCs) for the collection of data for the monitoring of health indicators of importance to persons with bleeding disorders. This data is used to measure rates of complications of bleeding disorders and monitor trends over time (including inhibitors and other issues of blood and treatment product safety); identify high risk populations for prevention programs; and identify issues that require research. The purpose of this FOA is to continue the surveillance for these conditions through the HTCs.

Nanomanufacturing is the production of useful nano-scale materials, structures, devices and systems in an economically viable manner. The NSF Nanomanufacturing Program supports fundamental research in novel methods and techniques for batch and continuous processes, top-down (addition/subtraction) and bottom-up (directed self-assembly) processes leading to the formation of complex heterogeneous nanosystems. The program supports basic research in nanostructure and process design principles, integration across length-scales, and system-level integration. The Program leverages advances in the understanding of nano-scale phenomena and processes (physical, chemical, electrical, thermal, mechanical and biological), nanomaterials discovery, novel nanostructure architectures, and new nanodevice and nanosystem concepts. It seeks to address quality, efficiency, scalability, reliability, safety and affordability issues that are relevant to manufacturing. To address these issues, the Program encourages research on processes and production systems based on computation, modeling and simulation, use of process metrology, sensing, monitoring, and control, and assessment of product (nanomaterial, nanostructure, nanodevice or nanosystem) quality and performance.The Program seeks to explore transformative approaches to nanomanufacturing, including but not limited to: micro-reactor and micro-fluidics enabled nanosynthesis, bio-inspired nanomanufacturing, manufacturing by nanomachines, additive nanomanufacturing, hierarchical nanostructure assembly, continuous high-rate nanofabrication such as roll-to-roll processing or massively-parallel large-area processing, and modular manufacturing platforms for nanosystems. The Program encourages the fabrication of nanomaterials by design, three-dimensional nanostructures, multi-layer nanodevices, and multi-material and multi-functional nanosystems. Also of interest is the manufacture of dynamic nanosystems such as nanomotors, nanorobots, and nanom

A. Purpose and Priorities The National Food Safety Training, Education, Extension, Outreach, and Technical Assistance Program will award grants that increase the understanding and adoption of established food safety standards, guidance, and protocols. Grants awarded through this program will be carried out in a manner that facilitates the integration of food safety standards and guidance with a variety of agricultural production systems, including conventional, sustainable, organic, and conservation and environmental practices carried out by the eligible entities. The assistance provided by these programs, to the extent practicable, shall be coordinated with and delivered in cooperation with similar services or assistance by other federal agencies or programs serving those eligible entities. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) have joined in a collaborative partnership to administer and manage the National Food Safety Training, Education, Extension, Outreach, and Technical Assistance Program. This program is designed to develop a comprehensive food safety training, education and technical assistance program for those affected by the FDA Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Specifically, this program will address the needs of owners and operators of small and medium-sized farms, beginning farmers, socially disadvantaged farmers, small processors, and small fresh fruit and vegetable merchant wholesalers. The joint program will award competitive grant funds that enable awardees to establish a National Coordination Center (NCC) for Food Safety Training, Education, Extension, Outreach, and Technical Assistance and Regional Centers (RC) for Food Safety Training, Education, Extension, Outreach, and Technical Assistance across the country for food safety training, education, and technical assistance. Project Teams for the RCs will reach out into local communities to work wi