Empowered Communities for a Healthier Nation

THIS ANNOUNCEMENT HAS BEEN POSTED AS MP-CPI-17-004. The Empowered Communities for a Healthier Nation Initiative seeks to demonstrate the effectiveness of collaborations with academic research centers, prevention research centers, teaching hospitalThe Empowered Communities for a Healthier Nation Initiative seeks to demonstrate the effectiveness of collaborations with academic research centers, prevention research centers, teaching hospitals, and Native American Tribes and Tribal organizations to reduce significant health disparities impacting minorities and disadvantaged populations through the implementation of evidence-based strategies with the greatest potential for impact. The program will serve residents in counties disproportionately impacted by the opioid epidemic; reduce the impact of serious mental illness and improve screening for serious mental illness at the primary care level for children, adolescents and/or adults; and reduce obesity prevalence and disparities in weight status among disadvantaged children and adolescents. The cooperative agreement will support the HHS Secretary’s priority areas that include the following core program components:Opioid abuse: These cooperative agreements are targeted to rural and urban communities that have experienced large increases in rates of opioid overdose deaths or opioid use disorder within the past five years. The cooperative agreements will:• Support the development of community-level strategies aimed at preventing opioid abuse and increasing access to treatment and recovery services. These strategies should include the following partners: local public health, law enforcement, substance abuse providers, the medical community, community-based prevention and risk reduction organizations, and faith-based organizations.• Support research to improve understanding of networks of people who inject drugs and risk factors for initiation of injection drug use and/or identifying effective strategies to reach, engage, and retain people who inject drugs in substance abuse treatment, including medication-assisted treatment for opioid use disorder.• Support implementation research to identify innovative strategies to provide comprehensive services to people who inject drugs, including a focus on reducing the transmission of viral hepatitis and HIV, engaging in opioid use disorder treatment, and providing overdose prevention education and naloxone distribution. Address mental illness through collaborative care networks:• Improve the routine screening and diagnosis of mental disorders. • Increase providers’ use of evidence-based protocols for the proactive management of diagnosed mental disorders. • Improve clinical and community support for active patient engagement in treatment goals setting and self-management.Address childhood/adolescent obesity:• Support prevention research studies to identify the combinations of intervention components that are most effective and determine which components are critical to success.• Improve access to behavioral interventions to reduce recreational sedentary time and improve nutritional, physical activity and weight-related outcomes among children and adolescents. • Develop family-centered strategies that reduce obesity and co-occurring conditions such as diabetes, hypertension, and hyperlipidemia.Each application may address only one of the three priority areas: opioid abuse; mental illness; or childhood/adolescent obesity.