Environmental Health Disparities Centers (P50) Clinical Trial Optional
Funds multidisciplinary research addressing environmental health disparities and justice in underserved US communities.
This grant is no longer accepting proposals
National Institutes of Health has archived this opportunity.
Funder: National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Due Dates: January 28, 2025 (Application Due) | December 28, 2024 (Letter of Intent)
Funding Amounts: Approximately $9 million total funding available to support 4-6 awards; budgets up to $1,000,000 direct costs per year for up to 5 years.
Summary: Supports multidisciplinary research centers addressing environmental health disparities and environmental justice in underserved U.S. populations.
Key Information: Clinical trial optional; requires Administrative, Investigator Development, Community Engagement cores, and at least one research project (one must be an intervention study if multiple projects proposed).
Description
The Environmental Health Disparities Centers (P50) program, funded by the NIH, aims to support multidisciplinary research centers focused on environmental health disparities and environmental justice among populations experiencing health disparities within the United States and its territories. The program promotes research capacity building, community-engaged research, and early career investigator development with a disease-agnostic focus.
Centers are expected to conduct innovative research addressing the disproportionate environmental burdens and social determinants of health (SDOH) that contribute to health disparities. The initiative encourages local intervention research with equitable community partnerships and the use of multilevel, multidomain frameworks such as the NIMHD Research Framework and NIEHS Translational Research Framework.
The program explicitly excludes applications focusing solely on climate change without a strong environmental justice and health disparities focus. Indigenous Knowledges and community strengths are emphasized as important components of research.
Required Components
Each center application must include:
- Administrative Core: Provides oversight, coordination, progress monitoring, and compliance with federal policies. Must maintain a public website with updated research summaries.
- Investigator Development Core: Focuses on training early career investigators and building research capacity, including a pilot project program supporting at least three small-scale projects annually.
- Community Engagement and Dissemination Core: Establishes equitable partnerships with affected communities, facilitates bi-directional communication, and disseminates research findings to diverse audiences.
- Research Project(s): One or two projects addressing environmental health disparities; if multiple projects are proposed, one must be an intervention study. Projects may include observational studies, interventions, or clinical trials.
Research Focus Areas
Examples of research topics include:
- Modeling interactions of environmental exposures and SDOH on health outcomes.
- Developing and testing environmental justice interventions, including those incorporating Indigenous Knowledges.
- Addressing upstream SDOH in immigrant and marginalized communities.
- Evaluating impacts of resource extraction, industrial agriculture, and personal care product exposures.
- Investigating environmental exposures’ effects on aging, mental health, and chronic diseases.
- Using GIS and mixed methods to identify and characterize affected communities.
Institute-Specific Interests
- NIA: Environmental factors affecting aging, Alzheimer’s disease, and related dementias.
- NCI: Environmental exposures and cancer disparities, structural racism, and community-engaged cancer control.
- NICHD: Human development, reproductive health, and child health in the context of environmental disparities.
- NINR: Health equity, social determinants, and systems of care across diverse settings.
