Health, Environment and Economic Development

The summary for the Health, Environment and Economic Development grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the National Institutes of Health, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Health, Environment and Economic Development: This RFA is intended to encourage developmental and exploratory research and research capacity-building in developing countries on topics that combine the issues of health, environment and economic development in order to improve scientific understanding of the relationships among those factors, and suggest guidance for policy. This announcement invites applications for funding of interdisciplinary, international research collaborations to examine the health effects of major economic development trends that affect the natural environment. It particularly seeks research that, among other things, focuses on developing a better understanding of the economic behavior and incentives of individuals and groups that affect health outcomes through changes in environmental conditions. The following Institutes and Centers of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) intend to jointly fund applications from U.S. and international applicants: the Fogarty International Center (FIC), the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), the National Institute for Child and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research (OBSSR). The National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) has an interest in demographic aspects of the links between HIV/AIDS and related health issues, environment and economic development, including population settlement and movement and urbanization. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) will provide, by agreement among investigators, support through collaboration with USGS scientists for research needs addressing the linkages between health, the environment, and economic development through research projects as noted below. If collaborative support from the USGS is of interest, applicants should prearrange this collaboration with the appropriate USGS representative listed in this announcement and document this support in their applications. The USGS studies, assesses, and develops and maintains National Data Bases on the Nation's water (quantity and quality) resources, flora, fauna, land characteristics, and mineral and energy resources; and determines past ecological and climate histories. The USGS is also developing expertise in better understanding and improving the linkages between natural science information and the use of that information in societal decisions. Information on potential collaborators and resources within the USGS can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.usgs.gov. Note that unconfirmed support from USGS or any other collaborator will not be considered during initial peer review of an application. While such collaborations could be added to a project after it has been funded, investigators are encouraged to develop these collaborations for the initial application. The research supported by this proposed program will complement the NIH program, International Studies on Health and Economic Development (ISHED), at the NIH Fogarty International Center, and is intended to pursue observational, intervention and policy research that: 1. Evaluates human health impacts of macroeconomic development trends that alter the environment; 2. Encourages application and development of economic tools that measure the impact of environmental change on human health; 3. Expands the collection and use of data to analyze links between human health and the physical and biological environment, and their mediation by socio-economic conditions; 4. Applies economic and risk analysis to the integration of ecosystem and human health information; 5. Improves understanding of the economic, political and social behaviors and incentives at the micro level that alter health outcomes through environmental change in developing countries; 6. Identifies, tests, and evaluates policy alternatives to improve health through economic and environmental strategies; 7. Communicates research results to international and national health, economic development, and/or environmental policy-makers and the public; and 8. Strengthens interdisciplinary research capacity to conduct analyses of environment and health outcomes in developing countries and countries in transition. Definitions For the purposes of this RFA, the following definitions should be applied: Economic Development: a sustained increase in average per capita income on a national basis. Developing Countries: low- and middle-income countries as listed at: http://www.worldbank.org/data/databytopic/class.htm Countries in Transition: market economies that were formerly planned economies, also listed at the above website among developing countries. Economic Tools: Instruments used in conducting economic analysis, including surveys, observations, econometric, published and unpublished data sources. Ecosystem: natural and human resources with emphasis on inter- relationships among and between human and natural resource services Environment: resources provided by nature, distinct from human beings, with emphasis on human use and values of natural resources (e.g. water, air, soil, etc.) Externality: impacts (negative or positive) imposed on third parties by an activity that is not accounted for in the decisions of the agent creating the impact Non-linear processes: relationships among variables that do not exhibit a 1-to-1 progression, and that may exhibit unpredictable perturbations Policy-maker: person or organization in a decision-making role used to alter health, environment, or economic outcomes Policy-relevance and dissemination: potential for practical application by converting findings of the research from basic, clinical, or epidemiological or environmental science into information, tools, or resources that can be used and are made available for use to policy-makers at local, national, and/or global levels. Scientific Objectives The goal of this RFA is to solicit applications for research studies that generate and/or test hypotheses examining the interactions among health, environment, and economic development, as well as the impact on health status of development projects or policies that affect the ecosystem. The research must be interdisciplinary and must include plans for research capacity-strengthening and policy dissemination. Such studies are not limited to, but may include: o Microeconomic studies that examine health and environment relationships at the individual, household, or business level using epidemiological and surveillance data. o Cross-sectional and longitudinal studies that examine health and environment relationships across countries, regions or populations or within the same population across time. o Experimental approaches to examine the effects of alternative policies and interventions (either health or environmental) on health outcomes. o Studies that analyze health and environmental relationships across economic sectors. o Studies that analyze the interplay between genetics and the environment (gene-environment interactions) for susceptibility factors and other non-therapeutic research, including etiological studies of environmental exposure. It is expected that some proposals may rely upon existing research efforts in one or more fields by adding a component to become eligible for Health, Environment, and Economic Development (HEED) consideration. For instance, studies of environmental impacts may add a component on health by gathering additional data and broadening the analytical framework and methods. To utilize this incremental approach to HEED research, however, it will be necessary to demonstrate that the proposed new study is analytically sound, the new component is well integrated with ongoing work, and that the research team is truly international and inter-disciplinary.