Through a new effort called UNITE, NIH has begun to identify short-term and long-term actions to end structural racism and racial inequities throughout the biomedical research enterprise.
As part of UNITE, the NIH Common Fund developed the Transformative Research to Address Health Disparities and Advance Health Equity initiative to support unusually innovative research projects, which, if successful, would have a major impact in developing, disseminating, or implementing innovative and effective interventions that prevent, reduce, or eliminate health disparities and health inequities. This includes two Funding Opportunity Announcements (FOAs):
1) RFA-RM-21-021 Transformative Research to Address Health Disparities and Advance Health Equity (U01 Clinical Trial Allowed)
2) RFA-RM-21-022 Transformative Research to Address Health Disparities and Advance Health Equity at Minority Serving Institutions (U01 Clinical Trial Allowed)
An additional funding opportunity, titled “Understanding and Addressing the Impact of Structural Racism and Discrimination on Minority Health and Health Disparities. (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)” was announced on Tuesday, March 24th. This initiative will support (1) observational research to understand the role of structural racism and discrimination (SRD) in causing and sustaining health disparities, and (2) intervention research that addresses SRD in order to improve minority health or reduce health disparities.