Policy and Alzheimers Disease (AD) and Alzheimers Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) Healthcare Disparities: Access, Utilization, and Quality (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA AG 23 024

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA AG 23 024

Policy and Alzheimers Disease (AD) and Alzheimers Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) Healthcare Disparities: Access, Utilization, and Quality (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity (RFA-AG-23-024) that supports research aimed at understanding why inequities persist in dementia-related health care and what can be learned from real-world policy differences. The focus is on disparities affecting people living with AD/ADRD, specifically disparities in access to care, patterns of service use (utilization), and the quality of care delivered. Rather than funding traditional clinical trials, the announcement prioritizes studies that take advantage of naturally occurring differences in social and health care policies across places and time periods to identify causal mechanisms behind unequal care.

A central idea in this FOA is that policies change, and those changes often do not affect all communities equally. Applicants are encouraged to treat these policy variations as opportunities for rigorous evaluation, using experimental, quasi-experimental, or otherwise innovative research designs. In practice, this could mean analyzing how differences in state Medicaid rules, reimbursement policies, long-term services and supports, caregiver supports, eligibility criteria, workforce policies, telehealth coverage, or other health and social policies shape who receives dementia screening and diagnosis, who can access specialty care and community-based services, how often people are hospitalized or placed in nursing homes, and whether the care they receive meets accepted standards. The goal is not only to document that disparities exist, but to uncover the mechanisms that produce them, which is essential for designing interventions and informing better policy decisions.

The mechanism supported is an NIH Research Project Grant (R01), and the FOA is explicitly labeled "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," signaling that the funded projects should not be clinical intervention trials involving prospective assignment of human participants to interventions. Instead, the research emphasis is on policy and systems-level evaluation, often relying on observational data, natural experiments, and analytic strategies that strengthen causal inference. Competitive proposals would typically be expected to use strong designs such as difference-in-differences, regression discontinuity, instrumental variables, interrupted time series, synthetic controls, or other approaches that can credibly estimate the effects of policies on dementia care outcomes and disparities, while also addressing confounding factors and bias.

Eligibility is broad, reflecting an interest in drawing on expertise from many sectors and ensuring that organizations closely connected to affected communities can lead or partner in the work. Eligible applicants include state, county, and local governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; other tribal organizations; public housing or Indian housing authorities; nonprofit organizations (with or without 501(c)(3) status); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses) and small businesses; and other entities. The FOA also explicitly welcomes applications from and involving organizations such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs), along with faith-based or community-based organizations, regional organizations, U.S. territories or possessions, eligible federal agencies, and even non-U.S. (foreign) entities. This wide net aligns with the reality that dementia care disparities are shaped by community context, service systems, and policy environments, not just clinical settings.

Administratively, this is a discretionary grant opportunity in the health funding category, associated with CFDA number 93.866, and offered by NIH (with the Institute-level focus implied by the "AG" identifier, which corresponds to the National Institute on Aging). The original closing date listed for the opportunity was October 20, 2022, and the posting indicates that an award ceiling and expected number of awards were not specified in the provided summary. The opportunity was created on May 6, 2022, which places it within a period when many federal dementia initiatives were emphasizing equity, real-world evidence, and policy-relevant research.

Overall, the FOA is best understood as a call for rigorous, policy-aware health services and health equity research in AD/ADRD. It aims to move beyond describing disparities toward identifying the policy-driven pathways that create or sustain them, using credible analytic designs and leveraging real-world policy variation to generate evidence that can guide improvements in dementia care access, utilization, and quality for populations that have historically been underserved or disproportionately burdened.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Policy and Alzheimers Disease (AD) and Alzheimers Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) Healthcare Disparities: Access, Utilization, and Quality (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.866.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-05-06.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2022-10-20. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA AG 23 024

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