Description
RFI Notice: THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI). The U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA), Office of Acquisitions and Grants Services (OAGS), is conducting market research to support acquisition planning for the evaluation of the FDA’s Center for Tobacco Products’ (CTP’s) public health education campaigns and communications programs. The purpose of this RFI is to assist FDA in learning more about the health communications and marketing research and evaluation industries, industry best practices for projects of this magnitude, and the capabilities of companies in the industry. In addition, this RFI will help identify any small businesses (i.e., Small Businesses, SBA Certified 8(a) Small Businesses, Woman-owned Small Businesses (WOSB), Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) Small Businesses, and Service-Disabled Veteran-owned Small Businesses (SDVOSB)) that are capable of providing the full range of services described in this RFI. The anticipated period of performance for this contract is 5 years. Background: To protect the public’s health, the 2009 Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act gave the U.S. Food and Drug Administration the authority to regulate tobacco products and educate the public about the dangers of tobacco use. In August 2016, FDA extended its regulatory authority to all tobacco products, including e-cigarettes, cigars, hookah, pipe tobacco, nicotine gels, and dissolvables. To reduce the public health burden of tobacco use in the U.S. and educate the public—especially young people—about the dangers of all tobacco product use, the FDA Center for Tobacco Products has developed and is continuing to develop and implement a number of public education campaigns (See Table 1). For each of our tobacco public health education campaigns, FDA has implemented multi-year outcome evaluation studies to assess the campaigns’ ability to achieve the following objectives. FDA is interested in assessing if and how its public health education campaigns achieve the following objectives: • Awareness of and receptivity to campaign messages • Increased knowledge of health risks associated with tobacco product use • Increased perceived risks of tobacco product use • Decreased appeal of tobacco products • Reduced susceptibility to tobacco initiation • Pro-health changes in normative beliefs about tobacco product use • Increased self-efficacy to quit smoking • Increased intention to quit • Decreased intention to initiate Additionally, FDA is interested in the overall impact of its campaigns on attitudes and beliefs about tobacco use, and in some cases, tobacco prevalence. For example, the evaluation results of FDA’s first tobacco prevention campaign, “The Real Cost,” demonstrates that the campaign reduced the number of youth who smoke by preventing up to 587,000 U.S. youth from initiating smoking from February 2014 to November 2016. This reduction in youth who smoke ultimately saved these kids, their families, and the country more than $53 billion by reducing smoking-related costs like early loss of life, costly medical care, lost wages, lower productivity, and increased disability. Evaluation results also show that the campaign has a cost savings of $180 for every dollar of the nearly $250 million invested in the first two years of the campaign. In light of the ever-changing landscape of tobacco products FDA plans to optimize current campaign efforts and may expand or add new initiatives in the coming years based on the market and tobacco products. FDA seeks to obtain evaluation options for current and future campaign efforts from research agencies with extensive and successful experience in providing a full-range of activities associated with researching and evaluating health and program-related materials for national public health campaigns and initiatives that are targeted to general and hard-to-reach at-risk populations. Table 1: Campaigns launched by CTP: 2014-2018 Campaign; Launch Date; Target Audience The Real Cost – Cigarettes; February 2014; Targets youth, ages 12-17 at-risk for cigarette use Fresh Empire; May 2015; Targets at-risk youth ages 12-17 who identify with Hip Hop culture The Real Cost – Smokeless; April 2016; Targets rural males ages 12-17 at-risk for smokeless tobacco use This Free Life; May 2016; Targets lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young adults ages 18-24 at-risk for addiction Every Try Counts; January 2018; Targets smokers ages 25-54 who have attempted to quit smoking in the last year but were unsuccessful The Real Cost – E-cigarettes; September 2018; Targets youth ages 12-17 at -risk for e-cigarette use Response Instructions: Any businesses with the availability, capability and interest to provide these services shall provide a response by the Response Date of this notice with information in the following sections: 1. Cover Page that includes: Company Name Company Address Company Website DUNS number Socio-economic status (i.e. small, 8(a), VOSB, SDVOSB, HUBZone, SDB, WOSB, etc.) Point of Contact (Name, position, email and phone number) 2. Completed Vendor Feedback Form (see attachment) 3. Capability Statement - A brief summary of the company’s capability to evaluate large, complex, behavior change-focused strategies and assess the impact of traditional and digital paid media campaigns targeting both national and niche audiences. This summary shall not exceed one thousand (1,000) words using 8.5” x 11” pages, 12-point font size in Times New Roman, and single-spaced. Responses to this Request for Information shall be sent via email as one (1) attachment (Microsoft Word or Adobe Acrobat formats only) to the Government representatives listed in this notice. Responses to the three (3) sections shall be in one (1) document and included as an attachment to the e-mail. The attachment shall be on 8.5” x 11” pages, with 12-point font size in Times New Roman (or equivalent) and single-spaced. The email subject line shall read, “FDA-20-RFI-1223425 – CTP Health Communication Research and Evaluation Program - __________ (enter name of your company.)” No other information other than what is specifically outlined this section shall be submitted. Disclaimer: THIS IS A REQUEST FOR INFORMATION (RFI) ONLY. This RFI is being issued in accordance with Federal Acquisition Regulation Part 10, Market Research. It is for information, planning and market research purposes only and is not to be construed as a commitment by the Government to issue a solicitation or ultimately award a contract. This notice does not obligate the Government to award a contract or otherwise pay for the information provided in response. Respondents are advised that the Government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information received or provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted. Respondents will not be notified of the results of the review. Current incumbent contract information: Contract number: HHSF223201610032I Contractor: Research Triangle Institute IDIQ Contract ceiling: $60,000,000 Amendment Jan. 21, 2020 The purpose of this revision is to revise the Vendor Feedback Form to add two additional market research questions. Please see the attached Vendor Feedback Form Rev.1 and submit with your RFI response.