NIMHD Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Program (R21)

Council Date: September 10, 2019

Objectives

This initiative is intended to help align R21 applications to NIMHD’s extramural research interest areas—Clinical and Health Services Research, Integrative Biological and Behavioral Sciences, and Community Health and Population Sciences (for details, see Research Interest Areas)—and promote investigator-initiated exploratory or developmental research with the potential to break new ground in minority health and health disparities science.

Description of Initiative:

Projects are expected to be human and/or population-based studies in the biomedical, behavioral, clinical, population or social sciences. This can include basic research with human participants, patient-oriented research, in vitro studies that utilize human tissues or specimens to investigate mechanisms underlying differential resilience or susceptibility to adverse health conditions, observational studies, epidemiologic studies, patient outcomes research, intervention research, dissemination and implementation research, and health services research.

Projects are expected to fall into one of three broad categories:

• Secondary analysis of existing data or biospecimens. Projects are expected to use quantitative analytic or mixed methods approaches to address novel research questions.
• Development and application of novel research measures, methodologies or analytic approaches. Projects are expected to offer innovative research approaches to advance the science of minority health and health disparities.
• Development and pilot testing of new or adapted interventions. Projects are expected to test the feasibility, acceptability and preliminary efficacy/effectiveness of new or adapted interventions to improve minority health or reduce health disparities. Projects should be supported by a conceptual model that includes a rationale for why new or adapted interventions are needed for the target population.

The following types of projects will not be supported under the NIMHD R21 program: (1) global health research that is not directly related to understanding or addressing minority health or health disparities in the U.S.; (2) projects that include animal studies; and (3) projects that focus on describing adverse health conditions by race/ethnicity or in other populations experiencing health disparities without examining potential mechanisms that drive health disparities or developing interventions that specifically target those mechanisms.

Page updated Jan. 12, 2024