CDC announces the availability of fiscal year (FY) 2020 funds to implement CDC-RFA-DP20-2007, the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS): Impact in Population Health. CDC established the BRFSS in 1984 with 15 states participating in monthly data collection. Since that time, the BRFSS has grown to be the only continuous, state-based health surveillance system that is conducted nationwide. The purpose of this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) is to provide financial and technical assistance to recipients to conduct health-related behavioral surveillance through the BRFSS and increase the use of BRFSS data to inform public health actions to improve health. The period of performance for this NOFO is three years with a 12-month budget period and an anticipated award date of August 1, 2020.

Although monitoring of health risk behaviors is conducted at the national level, these surveillance systems do not provide state-level data that public health and health care professionals need to improve population health. In addition, there is growing demand for data that corresponds with smaller, sub-state geographic areas such as metropolitan statistical areas and counties. Therefore, state and territorial (state) and sub-state level surveillance data are needed to better understand and address the health status, health risk behaviors, and health disparities within states and across the nation. State and local governments are charged with the responsibility to protect the health of residents.

Targeting health prevention efforts, evaluating those efforts to determine effectiveness and cost efficiencies and ultimately reducing health disparities and morbidity and mortality, demands high quality, valid surveillance systems. Accurate, timely surveillance information is essential to inform decision makers to guide strategic approaches to improving population health status. At the same time, there is growing demand for robust data on a variety of individual health concerns that is more responsive to time and cost constraints, particularly related to emerging public health issues or emergencies. This NOFO will fund recipients to collect and analyze surveillance data using a sample of telephone numbers, to monitor the prevalence of health risk behaviors that are associated with chronic health problems, preventable injuries and help respond to current and emerging health threats. While not covered in this NOFO, CDC will work with internal sponsoring programs and recipients to simplify and expedite decision making and governance, reduce the number of core questions, and reduce the time and resources needed to deliver the core questionnaire.