Deadline: 1 August 2018

The U.S Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), National Institutes of Health (NIH) is seeking applications for its program “Reducing Stigma to Improve HIV/AIDS Prevention, Treatment and Care in Low- and Middle-Income Countries”.

The overall goals are to understand how to reduce stigma as a factor in HIV transmission, to eliminate or mitigate the aspects of stigma that limit beneficial health outcomes for the infected and at-risk individuals and communities, and to initiate exploratory studies to determine the feasibility of stigma interventions related to HIV prevention, treatment and/or care in Low and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs).

Objectives

• Adapting, developing, validating or implementing stigma reduction interventions in PLWH. Target populations may include adolescents and/or youth, caregivers, and other key populations such as sex workers, people who inject drugs, transgender people, prisoners, and men who have sex with men, among others.
• Adapting, developing, or validating measurement instruments to assess the success of the intervention in reducing stigma and in improving health outcomes.
• Formative research on novel stigma reduction interventions to understand the obstacles to seeking care.
• Formative research to assess the complexities in layered or intersecting stigma that might lead to strategies to address the synergistic burden.
• Studies to assess stigma reduction interventions in specific social groups (for example, unmarried pregnant women); or across multiple groups (for example PLWH and their health care workers) linking to a health outcome such as decrease in transmission.
• Studies to assess the association of structural level stigma reduction interventions with better health outcomes; for example, modifiable structural factors such as health policy and its impact on health outcomes.
• Tools for addressing stigma awareness in HIV+ adolescents, young children and orphans and increase their participation in care seeking and prevention strategies.

Funding Information

Application budgets are limited to up to $125,000 per year in direct costs but need to reflect the actual needs of the proposed project.

Eligibility Criteria

• Higher Education Institutions
  • Public/State Controlled Institutions of Higher Education
  • Private Institutions of Higher Education
• The following types of Higher Education Institutions are always encouraged to apply for NIH support as Public or Private Institutions of Higher Education:
  • Hispanic-serving Institutions
  • Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs)
  • Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs)
  • Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions
  • Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs)
• Nonprofits Other Than Institutions of Higher Education
  • Nonprofits with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
  • Nonprofits without 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education)
• Other
  • Non-domestic (non-U.S.) Entities (Foreign Institutions)

Note: Non-domestic entities are restricted to higher education and/or research institutions and other non-profit organizations in LMICs.

How to Apply

Applicants can apply online via given website.

For more information, please visit DHHS/NIH.