The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to invite R21 applications on chronic conditions understudied among women and/or that disproportionately affect populations of women who are understudied, underrepresented, and underreported in biomedical Research should align with Goal 1 of the 2019-2023 Trans-NIH Strategic Plan for Women’s Health Research “Advancing Science for the Health of Women.”
Donor Name: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 06/20/2024
Size of the Grant: $275,000
Grant Duration: 2 years
Details:
The Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) works in partnership with the NIH Institutes, Centers and Offices (ICOs), as well as with federal agencies and their offices to ensure that women’s health research is an integral part of the larger scientific framework to enhance health and treat disease. The ORWH mission includes strengthening research relevant to diseases, disorders, and conditions that affect women and ensuring that research supported by NIH adequately addresses isues regarding women’s health. The ORWH led the development of the 2019-2023 Trans-NIH Strategic Plan for Women’s Health Research, which offered a vision in which the biomedical research enterprise thoroughly integrates sex and gender influences so that every woman receives evidence-based disease prevention and treatment tailored to her own needs, circumstances, and goals. This NOFO aligns with Goal 1 of this NIH Strategic Plan, advancing rigorous research that is relevant to the health of women, which contains the following objectives:
- Discover basic biological differences between females and males.
- Investigate the influence of sex and gender on disease prevention, presentation, management, and outcomes.
- Identify the immediate, mid-, and long-term effects of exposures on health and disease outcomes.
- Promote research that explores the influence of sex and gender on the connection between the mind and body, and its impact on health and disease.
- Expand research on female-specific conditions and diseases, including reproductive stages, and maternal and gynecologic health.
This NOFO will support research on chronic conditions that affect all women and individuals assigned female at birth that remain understudied building upon opportunities identified at the ORWH-led Advancing NIH Research on Women’s Health: A 2021 Conference. In the congressionally requested conference, several topics were specified for review by the NIH and the NIH Advisory Committee on Research on Women’s Health (ACRWH) including rising rates of chronic debilitating conditions in women. Chronic conditions were last defined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) in 2010 as “conditions that last a year or more and require ongoing medical attention and/or limit activities of daily living.” Sex and gender influence prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of chronic conditions and multimorbidity among women. Women have higher prevalence of chronic conditions; often present with different symptoms (e.g., dizziness rather than chest pain with cardiac disease); are affected by different chronic conditions (e.g., female-specific conditions, autoimmune disease); and accumulate multi-morbidity at different life course timepoints (e.g., after menopause) compared to men. Additionally, the burden of chronic conditions is not evenly distributed among communities of women, with higher prevalence among populations of women historically understudied and underrepresented in biomedical research (e.g., women from underrepresented racial and ethnic populations, women in economically disadvantaged groups, women who live in underserved rural populations, and women of sexual and gender minority groups). In preparation for the Advancing NIH Research on Women’s Health conference and in order to characterize ongoing research related to chronic debilitating conditions in women a clinical framework was developed. This framework grouped chronic debilitating conditions in women into the following categories: (1) female-specific, (2) more common in women and/or morbidity is greater for women, (3) potentially understudied in women, and (4) high morbidity for women. Using this framework, opportunities for research on chronic conditions understudied in women were identified.
Specific Areas of Research Interest
ORWH is interested in research on approaches to understanding chronic conditions and multimorbidity in women: understanding the underlying mechanisms of disease (including sex and gender differences); identifying environmental factors (including psychosocial, socioeconomic, and sociocultural determinants of health) that influence risk; improving prevention, diagnosis and treatment interventions; and improving quality of life following diagnosis. Research on chronic conditions with differential prevalence, morbidity and/or mortality in populations of women historically understudied and underrepresented in biomedical research is of particular interest.
Proposals focused on topics that were identified within the framework developed for the consideration of chronic debilitating conditions in women are of particular interest. Those topics include but are not limited to the following:
Female-specific conditions including but not limited to the following:
- Menopausal symptoms
- Polycystic ovarian syndrome
- Gynecologic malignancies (e?.g., endometrial/uterine or ovarian cancer, leiomyosarcoma), including research related to understanding determinants and contributors, early detection, prevention and symptom management, including:
- Identifying contributors to increased incidence or contributors to differential incidence or worse outcomes in underrepresented populations.
- Progression of benign or pre-malignant conditions to carcinoma.
- Identification of targets to improve outcomes of underrepresented women with pre-cancer or cancer precursors.
- Evaluation of differential responses to cancer preventive interventions.
- Evaluation of alternative administration or dosing of cancer preventive interventions to improve safety profiles and adherence.
- Dysmenorrhea, Abnormal menses
- Endometriosis and adenomyosis, including research related to progression of these benign gynecologic conditions to malignant gynecologic cancers (i.e., endometrial/uterine or ovarian cancer)
- Pelvic organ prolapse
- Chronic gynecologic pelvic pain
- Fibroids/leiomyomas
- Conditions More Common in Women and/or Morbidity is Greater in Women including but not limited to the following:
- Inflammation and immunity
- Autoimmune disorders
- Mental health (including depression)
- Migraine and Headache
- Conditions that are Potentially Understudied in Women including but not limited to the following
- Musculoskeletal disease (including arthritis)
- Trauma and Posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Violence against women, intimate partner violence, gender-based violence
- Recurrent urinary tract infections, overactive bladder and incontinence
- Conditions that Cause High Morbidity in Women including but not limited to the following
- Lower Back Pain
- Aging-related skeletal muscle function deficit (loss of muscle mass, strength and function as one ages)
- Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease
- Obesity and metabolic conditions
Funding Information
- Application budgets may not exceed $275,000 in direct costs over two years, with a maximum of $200,000 for any year.
- Award Project Period: The total project period for an application submitted in response to this NOFOmay not exceed 2 years.
Eligible Applicants
- Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments)
- Small businesses
- Nonprofits that do not have a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- Private institutions of higher education
- Special district governments
- For profit organizations other than small businesses
- Nonprofits having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education
- County governments
- Independent school districts
- Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities
- Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized)
- State governments
- City or township governments
- Public and State controlled institutions of higher education
For more information, visit Grants.gov.