Innovations for Healthy Living - Improving Minority Health and Eliminating Health Disparities (R43)

Grants to USA small businesses to develop technologies and products that promote health care and eliminate disparities in critical health conditions. December 27 is the deadline to submit an optional letter of intent. New or improved technologies increase access to health care providers, address needs of different cultural communities, increase financial resources, and more.

Technologies addressing challenges faced in rural areas are of particular interest.

The purpose of this funding opportunity is to engage small business concerns (SBC) in developing technologies and products that engage, empower, and motivate individuals and communities, including providers and healthcare institutions, in sustainable health promoting activities and interventions that lead to improved health, healthcare delivery, and the elimination of health disparities. Appropriate technologies must be effective, affordable, culturally acceptable, and easily accessible to those who need them.

This announcement is expected to reduce health disparities within and across the priority areas of cardiovascular disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, infant mortality, mental health, and obesity, as well as lung, liver, and kidney diseases, psoriasis, scleroderma, and other diseases, illnesses, and conditions of public health importance.

Technologies to be developed may be new and innovative or they may arise from existing technologies that by redesign create increased and more attractive opportunities for health disparity populations to experience better health, improve their current health, and to maintain a long and healthy lifestyle. Empowering technologies are attractive, accessible easy to use, adoptable, and sustainable. To be effective, a technology must provide users improvements in health status and well-being relative to their current health status and well-being. The technology should be reliable, robust, and have reproducible outcomes.

Technologies that might achieve the objectives of this initiative include but are not limited to:

* Innovative products or services that facilitate or enhance care coordination between primary care providers, hospital emergency department staff, specialty physicians, nurse practitioners, providers of mental health and behavioral health services, patient navigators, etc., in medically underserved communities and regions.

* Culturally attuned behavioral interventions or low-cost tools and technologies (e.g. software apps for mobile devices) that empower and promote opportunities for individuals and communities to engage in health-seeking behaviors (diet choice, exercise/physical activity, oral hygiene, medication adherence, child immunizations, etc.) and to avoid risky behaviors (smoking, alcohol/drug misuse, unsafe sex, etc.).

* Tools, technologies, and methods for detecting, measuring, and assessing a broad array of unhealthy social and environmental exposures (stress, pollutants, allergens, noise, crime, etc.), and for characterizing cumulative exposures to these environments (exposomes) for individuals and communities and linking this information to physiological responses and health indicators at the individual and population levels. These technologies may include efforts to improve data collection and data integration across disparate data sources, including clinical patient data, public health data, census data, housing data, employment data, crime statistics, etc.

* Products or services that expand opportunities to access and utilize high-quality prenatal care and thereby reduce the frequency of high-risk pregnancies in health disparities populations.

* Products or services that engage, empower, and motivate individuals and communities to enhance the quality of life and reduce health disparities among people with disabilities.

* Culturally appropriate survey instruments, tools, modules and databases to promote community-based research engaging racial/ethnic minorities, rural and other medically underserved communities.

* Culturally appropriate, evidence-based health empowering promotion and disease prevention educational media such as software, informational videos, printed materials for health disparities populations and disadvantaged communities.

* Innovative software, tools and technology for Science and Health Education such as curriculum materials, interactive teaching aids, models for classroom instruction for K-12 and undergraduate students and the general public.

* Mobile health (mHealth) and telehealth/telemedicine technologies and apps for communication, diagnosis, monitoring, evaluation, medical management, tracking and treatment in underserved community settings and rural and remote locations.