Dissemination/Implementation: Mental/Emotional/ Behavioral Health Preventive Interventions in School
Deadline: June 05, 2024
5 pm
Amount: Variable
Purpose
Purpose
The purpose of this Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) is to stimulate dissemination and implementation research to support innovative approaches to identifying, understanding, and developing strategies for overcoming barriers to the adoption, adaptation, integration, scale-up and sustainability of evidence-based preventive interventions to support children’s mental, emotional, and behavioral (MEB) health in school settings. This NOSI encourages applications which focus on dissemination and implementation research to deliver interventions in the school setting that will promote healthy MEB development and/or prevent MEB disorders. Applications should include a focus on one of the following: (1) primary/universal prevention MEB programs designed to promote healthy MEB development by decreasing risk factors and increasing protective factors to prevent onset of an MEB disorder; or (2) secondary/selective prevention programs designed to support screening and early identification of MEB disorders to slow progression with early intervention. Applications focused on tertiary/indicated treatment of MEB disorders will be considered non-responsive to this Notice.
Background
In 2019, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine published a report, Fostering Healthy Mental, Emotional and Behavioral Development in Children and Youth. The report revealed that MEB disorders (e.g., anxiety disorders, depression, substance use disorders, and/or behavior disorders) are common, emerge during childhood or adolescence, and are linked to disability, school dropout, incarceration, and homelessness, posing a major threat to healthy development. Importantly, poor MEB health negatively impacts academic performance, and this carries over into postsecondary education. Children have limited access to services for promoting MEB health and preventing MEB disorders. This is particularly true for children from NIH-designated health disparity populations (i.e., Blacks/African Americans, Hispanics/Latinos, American Indians/Alaska Natives, Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and other Pacific Islanders, socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, underserved rural populations, and sexual and gender minorities) and other vulnerable populations (e.g., children with disabilities, homeless youth). Public schools have increasingly become key access points of MEB health programs, services, and referrals for children. Although efficacious evidence-based interventions aimed at preventing MEB disorders exist, challenges and barriers need to be addressed to improve their adoption, integration, scale-up and sustainability. To advance health equity in MEB health outcomes, local adaptations to existing interventions may be needed to promote scale-up and sustainability of interventions in ways that better meet the needs of children from health disparity and vulnerable populations.
Research Objectives:
The objectives of this NOSI are to advance implementation and dissemination research of evidence-based MEB programs aimed at promoting children’s mental, emotional, and behavioral health or preventing MEB disorders in school settings, with a particular focus on schools that serve NIH designated health disparity populations and other vulnerable populations likely to be under-resourced.
Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:
- Studies of strategies to implement MEB health promotion and prevention interventions (i.e., primary/universal; secondary/selective) into school settings
- Studies that identify the core components of preventive MEB interventions or policy that make it effective, as well as the optimal ways to improve the fidelity of implementation and/or adapt those components for diverse settings when necessary
- Studies to inform how multi-level (e.g., student, teacher, school, family, community) MEB interventions and/or interventions targeting multiple MEB outcomes can be optimally delivered in K-12 school settings
- Strategies that leverage multi-level, cross-sector partnerships among schools, businesses, health care systems, community-based organizations, and other community resources to advance the scale-up of effective MEB health programs, policies, and practices
- Studies testing the effectiveness of dissemination or implementation strategies to reduce health disparities in MEB health and improve quality of care among rural, minority, low literacy and numeracy, and other underserved children and adolescents
- Studies conducting comparative economic evaluation of implementation strategies to foster MEB health in school settings and/or across phases of implementation
- Longitudinal follow-up studies on implementation strategies, adaptations, and/or other potential factors that may contribute to the long-term sustainability of evidence-based MEB prevention programs, practices, or policies in school-settings
- Research that includes multi-jurisdictional data or multiple school districts is encouraged, in particular to consider how features of the broader community and resources impact the effectiveness, adoption, scale-up, and sustainability of MEB health programming.
IC Specific Application and Submission Information
Applicants must select the IC and associated FOA to use for submission of an application in response to the NOSI. The selection must align with the IC requirements listed in order to be considered responsive to that FOA. Non-responsive applications will be withdrawn from consideration for this initiative.