Deadline: 9 April 2019

The U.S Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking applications for its grant program entitled “Innovative Approaches for Improving Environmental Health Literacy”.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) continues to support innovative and diverse partnerships to bring environmental health science concepts to various audiences with the goal of improving their environmental health literacy.

The purpose of this FOA is to engage the small business community to work with environmental health science researchers and educators to develop tools, activities, or materials to build environmental health literacy for students, health professionals, and the general public.

Objectives

As part of its Partnerships for Environmental Public Health (PEPH) Program, NIEHS is interested in developing tools that build capacity, improve environmental health literacy, and support citizen science endeavors. In addition, there is a need for improved approaches for communicating Environmental Health Science concepts for diverse audiences, including K-12 education, undergraduate and graduate education, and information for health care professionals. These approaches or resources should be fit-for-purpose to meet the needs of the following audiences: community members, health care and public health professionals, educators, and students of all ages. Approaches may include:

• Interactive digital media (IDM) that provide environmental health information about exposures of concern in food, air, water, or consumer products. These may include:
  • IDM that provide the context for the exposures such as single or multiple, interacting exposures, level of exposure, frequency, and proximity to source
  • IDM that can be adapted for various age groups (e.g., children or the elderly), races, ethnicities and/or languages
  • IDM that visualize exposure risks with respect to levels of exposure, sources and health risks
• Devices for collecting and reporting information on exposures in environmental samples (e.g., air, water or soil) for educational purposes in schools or communities
• Systems that can utilize public and voluntary population data on exposures from sensors, activity trackers, GIS enabled devices, social communications, and surveillance cameras; for example, to assist disaster response and communication (e.g., risk or health effects)
• Educational resources related to environmental health in school settings or community education programs (e.g., Photovoice projects or GIS mapping)
• Training materials for wider dissemination of risk information (e.g., for community leaders to build research capacity of other community residents).
• Continuing medical education classes, on-line courses, or on-line tools to build the environmental health literacy of health care professionals
• Applicants should provide clear, quantifiable milestones for the proposed research.

Proposed technologies must address education and capacity building for Environmental Health topics; approaches that cover general STEM education without addressing EHS concepts will be considered non-responsive to this solicitation.

Funding Information

The Estimated Total Program Funding of this program is $2,000,000.

Eligibility Criteria

• Only United States small business concerns (SBCs) are eligible to submit applications for this opportunity. A small business concern is one that, at the time of award of Phase I and Phase II, meets all of the following criteria:
  • Is organized for profit, with a place of business located in the United States, which operates primarily within the United States or which makes a significant contribution to the United States economy through payment of taxes or use of American products, materials or labor;
  • Is in the legal form of an individual proprietorship, partnership, limited liability company, corporation, joint venture, association, trust or cooperative, except that where the form is a joint venture, there must be less than 50 percent participation by foreign business entities in the joint venture;
  • SBIR and STTR. Be a concern which is more than 50% directly owned and controlled by one or more individuals (who are citizens or permanent resident aliens of the United States), other business concerns (each of which is more than 50% directly owned and controlled by individuals who are citizens or permanent resident aliens of the United States), or any combination of these; OR
  • SBIR-only. Be a concern which is more than 50% owned by multiple venture capital operating companies, hedge funds, private equity firms, or any combination of these. No single venture capital operating company, hedge fund, or private equity firm may own more than 50% of the concern; OR
  • SBIR and STTR. Be a joint venture in which each entity to the joint venture must meet the requirements set forth in paragraph 3 (i) or 3 (ii) of this section. A joint venture that includes one or more concerns that meet the requirements of paragraph (ii) of this section must comply with § 121.705(b) concerning registration and proposal requirements.
• Has, including its affiliates, not more than 500 employees.

Foreign Institutions

• Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions) are not eligible to apply.
• Non-domestic (non-U.S.) components of U.S. Organizations are not eligible to apply.
• Foreign components, as defined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement, may be allowed.

How to Apply

Applications must be submitted online via given website.

For more information, please visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=312737