Disaster Research Response (DR2) Program Funding & Support

NIEHS Funding Opportunities

• Environmental Risks for Psychiatric Disorders: Biological Basis of Pathophysiology (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
  Encourages research to explore environmental contributors to psychiatric disorders that emerge in late childhood, adolescence, or early adulthood, as well as the biological mechanisms underlying these disorders. This opportunity is open to projects using human studies, mechanistic laboratory-based models, or interdisciplinary approaches.
• Mechanism for Time-Sensitive Research Opportunities in Environmental Health Sciences (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
  Supports environmental health research in which an unpredictable event provides a limited window of opportunity to collect human biological samples or environmental exposure data. The program aims to understand the consequences of natural and human-caused disasters or emerging public health threats in the U.S. and abroad.
• NIEHS Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Technology Transfer Research (STTR)
  Provides funding for small businesses to develop innovative and commercially viable products or technologies to translate and communicate environmental health research to improve environmental public health. These technologies include those for exposure assessment, biomonitoring, remediation, screening, education and training, and many others.

NIH Funding Opportunities

• Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
  Supports innovative approaches to identifying, understanding, and developing strategies for overcoming barriers to the adoption, adaptation, integration, scale-up, and sustainability of evidence-based interventions, tools, policies, and guidelines.
• NIH Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) Research Centers of Excellence (U54 – Clinical Trial Optional)
  The mission of the NIH CounterACT program is to support research and development of new therapeutics for chemical threats. Chemical threats are toxic chemicals that could be used in a terrorist attack or accidentally released from industrial production, storage, or shipping. They include traditional chemical warfare agents, toxic industrial chemicals, pharmaceutical-based agents, pesticides, and others.
• Understanding and Addressing the Impact of Structural Racism and Discrimination on Minority Health and Health Disparities (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
  NIEHS is interested in observational research examining the role of structural racism and discrimination (SRD) as a significant determinant in environmental health disparities, or evidence-based intervention research that mitigates or prevents the negative health outcomes attributable to environmental SRD. Applicants are strongly encouraged to utilize community engaged research approaches. Areas of specific interest to NIEHS in environmental SRD include, but are not limited to: single or combined environmental exposures (i.e., mixtures) affecting the health of communities; health impacts of climate change, extreme weather and natural or human caused disasters; the built environment and greenspace, including green gentrification; studies grounded in community identified concerns around the intersection of environmental SRD and health outcomes; the impact of environmental SRD on health outcomes across the lifespan; and the role of environmental SRD in occupational exposures.

Special Topic: COVID-19

• Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) Regarding the Availability of Urgent Competitive Revisions and Administrative Supplements for Research on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) in Individuals with Down Syndrome for the INCLUDE Project
  Supports research projects to explore the impact of COVID-19 infection on individuals with Down syndrome, with the goal of improving treatment options and reducing COVID-19 associated morbidity and mortality in this population.
• Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics for Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) Coordination and Data Collection Center
  The National Institutes of Health (NIH) Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics-Underserved Populations (RADx-UP) aims to understand and alleviate the barriers to COVID-19 testing to ensure that all Americans have access, with a focus on communities most affected by the pandemic. The RADx-UP Coordination and Data Collection Center is managed through a partnership of the Duke Clinical Research Institute, the UNC-Chapel Hill Center for Health Equity Research, and Community-Campus Partnerships for Health.
  • RADx-UP Coordination and Data Collection Center (CDCC) Community Collaboration Mini-Grant Program
  • RADx-UP Coordination and Data Collection Center (CDCC) Rapid Research Response Pilot Program

Past Funding Opportunities

• Environmental Influences on Aging: Effects of Extreme Weather and Disaster Events on Aging Populations (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
  Supports research to advance our understanding of the impact of extreme weather and disaster events in aging human populations. With the companion FOA (PAR-19-249), which focuses on underlying mechanisms of aging utilizing animal models, these two FOAs will help to explicate the behavioral, biological, and socioecological processes that occur during extreme weather or disaster events that affect aging processes.
• Research to Action: Assessing and Addressing Exposures to Environmental Contaminants (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
  Encourages multidisciplinary projects to investigate the potential health risks of environmental exposures of concern to a community and to implement an environmental public health action plan based on research findings. The Research to Action program is part of the NIEHS Partnerships for Environmental Public Health network.
• Superfund Hazardous Substance Research and Training Program (P42 Clinical Trial Optional
  Supports multidisciplinary, solution-oriented research projects that aim to advance techniques for detection, assessment, evaluation, and reduction of health effects and risks related to exposure to hazardous substances. These projects fall within the scope of the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986.

Special Topic: COVID-19

• Notice of Special Interest: NIEHS Support for Understanding the Impact of Environmental Exposures on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
  Supports research to better understand the impact of environmental exposures on Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) and its causative agent, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). NIEHS seeks to promote rapid understanding of the potential contributions that current and past exposure to environmental agents can have on COVID-19 susceptibility, disease severity, and progression.
• Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) Regarding the Availability of Administrative Supplements and Urgent Competitive Revisions for Research on the 2019 Novel Coronavirus and the Behavioral and Social Sciences
  Encourages social, behavioral, economic, health communication, and epidemiologic research relevant to SARS-CoV-2 virus and COVID-19. Research projects are encouraged to consider four broad areas relevant to the pandemic: 1) adherence to or transmission reductions from containment and mitigation efforts; 2) economic, social, and personal well-being impacts of containment and mitigation actions; 3) impacts and behavioral responses to misinformation related to COVID-19 prevention, treatment, and health effects through various information channels; and 4) downstream health effects including but not limited to substance use, mental illness, suicide, stress-related physical disorders, and limitations on healthcare access.

Related Funding Opportunities

National Science Foundation (NSF)

• NSF Disaster Resilience Research Grants
• NSF Humans, Disasters, and Built Environment Program
• NSF Natural Hazards Center Quick Response Research Program