This Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) highlights the urgent need to understand and address COVID-19 morbidity and mortality disparities among underserved and vulnerable populations across the United States. These two-year community-engaged Testing Research Projects will examine SARS-CoV-2 infection patterns and efforts to increase access and effectiveness of diagnostic methods through the Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics for Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) initiative. The overarching goal is to understand factors that have led to disproportionate burden of the pandemic on these underserved populations so that interventions can be implemented to decrease these disparities. The funding for this supplement program is provided from the Paycheck Protection Program and Health Care Enhancement Act, 2020.
The Office of the Director (OD) is therefore offering Emergency Competitive Revisions to active eligible grants and cooperative agreements addressing the objectives described below. This NOSI is one of four related RADx-UP funding opportunities. This Testing Research Projects NOSI will support supplements to individual NIH research awards that include community collaborations or partnerships to support COVID-19 testing (or have the capacity to ramp up quickly) to reach underserved and/or COVID-19 vulnerable populations.
The related program initiatives include:
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NOT-OD-20-121 with a similar focus, but shifts the pool of eligible grants for supplementation to those that are part of large-scale networks, consortia, centers and other current programs that have adequate capacity, infrastructure, and established community-engaged relationships to support large-scale testing.
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NOT-OD-20-119 which seeks research to understand the Social, Ethical and Behavioral Implications (SEBI) of COVID-19 testing in these populations.
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RFA-OD-20-013 which is a U24 Coordination and Data Collection Center (CDCC) as a key component of the consortium.
Collectively, projects funded under these NOSIs will serve as one consortium of interlinked community-engaged research projects across the United States to understand COVID-19 health disparities, and to deploy implementation strategies to improve the reach, acceptance, uptake, and sustainability of COVID-19 testing.
NIH expects that all competitive revisions funded under this NOSI will actively coordinate, collaborate, and share data with other Testing Research Projects, the CDCC, and other research supported by the SEBI program, as allowed, and with considerations under tribal IRB processes. Researchers applying to this NOSI are strongly encouraged to read all four of these interrelated funding opportunities.