Dear Colleagues:

On June 1, 2020, NSF will implement the Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 20-1) for proposals submitted or due on or after this date. The revised PAPPG implements a variety of changes and clarifications, the highest profile of which requires use of an NSF-approved format for the preparation of the biographical sketch and current and pending support.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing stress on proposers, the research community has not been able to adequately prepare and train their staff for the implementation of the new requirements.

NSF has therefore made the decision to delay the requirement to use NSF-approved formats for the biographical sketch and current and pending support sections of NSF proposals until October 1, 2020. Proposers must continue to format these documents in accordance with PAPPG requirements (see PAPPG sections II.C.2.f and II.C.2.h). NSF encourages the community to use these formats and continue to provide valuable feedback as we enhance them for future implementation.

Over the coming week, NSF will make updates to existing policy guidance, websites and Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to reflect the change. NSF will communicate further with the community once these updates have been made.

Webinars covering the use of NSF-approved formats as well as all of the significant changes to the PAPPG are available on the NSF Policy Outreach website.

NSF will continue to implement all other changes to the PAPPG beginning June 1, 2020, including the following:

• New requirement for proposing organizations to submit government-wide representations and certifications in the System for Award Management (SAM);
•  New requirement for providing e-mail documentation of Program Officer approval for the submission of RAPID and EAGER proposals; and
•  Clarifications to current and pending support coverage as well as other changes throughout the document.

You are encouraged to review the by-chapter summary of changes provided in the Introduction section of the PAPPG. If you have any questions regarding these changes, please contact the DIAS/Policy Office at policy@nsf.gov. 

The Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR) and participating ICOs are issuing this Notice to highlight interest in the systematic development of novel health-related behavioral interventions that leverage new, emerging or understudied areas in basic behavioral and social sciences research (bBSSR). To achieve more potent and sustained strategies to promote health-related behavior change, there is a need for intentional and methodical translation of foundational behavioral and social science discoveries into new or improved interventions. This includes research that focuses on use-inspired bBSSR, understanding of mechanisms of action underlying initial and sustained behavior change, and systematic development and testing of health-related behavioral interventions and their components.

Background:

While there have been many important prevention and treatment advances based on behavioral and social science research, it is not uncommon for even the most robust interventions to work only in a subset of those intervened upon and for changes to be difficult to sustain over time. There is a need for intervention development research that bridges basic and applied behavioral science, in which insights from basic research about the mechanisms and moderators of human behavior are used to develop more effective, efficient, and enduring interventions for health-related behavior change.

Research Objectives:

This Notice encourages translational behavioral intervention research, integrated with basic behavioral and social science, aimed at creating, refining, and testing novel interventions focused on the initiation, cessation, or maintenance of behaviors associated with improved health or disease mitigation.

The behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and/or social targets for the intervention/s being developed and tested in response to this NOSI, should be based on insights from basic science about mechanisms that underlie health-related behavior change. Interventions may target the individual (e.g., cognitive or psychological processes), the immediate social environment (e.g., dyadic or family relationships), and/or broader social, organizational or environmental systems (e.g., worksites, schools, healthcare delivery, or neighborhood features).

Outcomes may include clinical indicators or health-related behaviors measured at the individual level or shifts in behavior or health indicators that are measured at an aggregate/population level.

Applicants are encouraged to employ innovative study designs for building, adapting, and optimizing behavioral interventions. Interdisciplinary project teams are also encouraged.

The use of an intervention development framework and/or approach to inform the research plan is encouraged. Examples include, but are not limited to, the Obesity Related Behavioral Intervention Trials (ORBIT) model for behavioral treatment development; the NIH Stage Model for Behavioral Intervention Development; and the Science of Behavior Change’s experimental medicine approach.

Intervention creation and refinement require iterative and systematic testing of intervention features and components. Study timelines should include clear research steps, goals and milestones (go/no-go decision points). It is understood that during the intervention development process, timeline deviations may occur based on study results; for example, findings at one step may require a return to an earlier step to further refine an intervention or better understand the mechanism of action. As such, applicants should include a plan for dealing with unexpected results before proceeding to the next step of the intervention development refinement and testing plan.

The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to improve health outcomes for individuals with deafness or communication disorders through effectiveness and health services research in the NIDCD mission areas of hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice, speech and language.

One of the missions of the NIDCD is to improve the health outcomes for individuals with deafness or communication disorders. Scientifically-validated prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation approaches will lead to better personal and public health only if they are translated effectively from the research laboratory into routine practice. Efficacy studies measure how well a treatment or intervention works in a clinical trial or laboratory setting. Following efficacy studies, effectiveness studies further evaluate how an intervention performs in the complex and variable context of real-world practice, in various community, clinical and provider settings, and with a broad and diverse patient population. Substantial fall-off in effect sizes is often seen in the translation from efficacy to effectiveness research, highlighting the importance of this stage of evaluation.

Health services research examines the impact of organization, financing and management of health care services on the delivery, quality, cost, access to and outcomes of such services, including demographic, social, economic, and health system factors as they relate to providing preventive, screening, diagnostic, treatment and rehabilitative services. This NOSI seeks to encourage effectiveness and health services research for improved outcomes in the prevention and treatment of disorders of hearing, balance, smell, taste, voice, speech and language.

NIDCD effectiveness research seeks to measure, evaluate and/or improve patient-centered outcomes following intervention for communication disorders. Effectiveness research seeks to determine to what degree an intervention works in patients/populations in general, real-world settings, such as in diverse populations and diverse provider and clinical practice settings. Research outcomes are usually broader in range than typical patient-oriented research studies and include an expanded assessment of outcomes compared to traditional clinical research metrics. For example, an outcomes study would measure functional status, well-being, quality of life, cost, health care resource use, etc., (as opposed to/or in conjunction with traditional clinical metrics such as measures of language, or speech discrimination in noise). Effectiveness research typically employs broader inclusion criteria and has fewer restrictions for participation than traditional clinical study/clinical trial/efficacy research performed under a tightly controlled research setting. Effectiveness research addresses patient-centered outcomes in practice-relevant environments, focuses on quality of life, patient experience of and satisfaction with health care, and the social and economic consequences of care. It may include evaluation of economic impacts linked to health outcomes, and may be performed at either the patient or population level, or both.

Dissemination and Implementation Research seeks to understand how health information and scientifically based clinical practices are/are not adopted in a variety of settings. This includes research on health promotion and approaches to increase use of evidence-based guidelines by both individuals and health care providers. These studies focus on implementing research findings into practice. Individuals interested in applying for research support in Implementation and Dissemination Research should apply under the NIDCD-participating FOA PAR-19-274 “Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (R01)”.

There is substantial overlap among the above-mentioned research areas and all require collaborative multidisciplinary investigations. Applicants are encouraged to create collaborative teams which may include clinical experts not only in the traditional NIDCD mission areas, but also in other medical specialties and health care professions as well as experts in sociology, health services, health outcomes, economics, biostatistics, public health, health care financing and organization, survey research, psychometrics, epidemiology, and evaluation.

Coronaviruses are a diverse family of viruses that cause a range of disease in humans and animals, and there are currently no approved coronavirus vaccines or therapeutics. In January 2020, a novel coronavirus was identified as the causative agent of a global pandemic of viral pneumonia. Current information regarding confirmed cases is changing daily and can be found on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/index.html) and through other sources. Transmission characteristics and the associated morbidity and mortality are not completely understood, but there is clear evidence of human-to-human transmission. Many other aspects of viral pathogenesis, natural history, and host range are poorly understood. Given this, there is an urgent public health need to better understand the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19.

In order to rapidly improve our understanding and available control measures for SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19, NIAID is encouraging the submission of applications to address the following research areas of interest:

• Studies to understand critical aspects of viral infection, replication, pathogenesis, and transmission
• Studies on the evolution and emergence of SARS-CoV-2 viruses including the identification of factors that affect viral host-range and virulence
• Development of sensitive, specific, and rapid clinical diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2
• Development of SARS-COV-2 therapeutic candidates, especially broad-spectrum therapeutics against multiple coronavirus strains
• Identification and evaluation of the innate, cellular and humoral immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 infection, including, but not limited to: cross-reactive antibodies from individuals exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses; viral epitopes critical for T-cell activation or antibody binding and neutralization; immune-mediated pathology or host factors that might predispose to severe infection; and studies to examine duration of protection or the potential for reinfection
• Development of SARS-CoV-2 vaccine candidates, including approaches for pan-coronavirus protection, that include emerging antigen design strategies, novel platforms or delivery approaches, adjuvants, or assessing cross-neutralization potential of SARS-CoV vaccine candidates.

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.