Population Health Interventions: Integrating Individual and Group Level Evidence (R01) Clinical Trials Not Allowed | PA 18 356

Opportunity Information: Apply for PA 18 356

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity titled "Population Health Interventions: Integrating Individual and Group Level Evidence (R01) - Clinical Trials Not Allowed" (Funding Opportunity Number PA-18-356) is a discretionary grant program designed to push health research beyond the clinic and the laboratory and into the real-world conditions that shape health across communities. The central idea is that improving health outcomes at scale often requires intervening on the social, economic, and environmental drivers of disease, not just on individual biology or individual behaviors. NIH is looking for research projects that build and test population health interventions using a multilevel, transdisciplinary approach, meaning teams should pull together expertise from multiple fields and design interventions that operate across more than one level of influence (for example, individual, family, organizational, neighborhood, policy, or broader systems).

This FOA emphasizes interventions that integrate evidence at both the individual and group levels. In practice, that means proposals should not treat individual-level outcomes (like changes in blood pressure, medication adherence, or stress) as separate from group-level realities (like housing stability, school policies, workplace conditions, transportation access, food environments, discrimination, or community resource distribution). Competitive projects are expected to connect these layers in a coherent strategy: identifying upstream conditions that create risk, designing intervention components that can shift those conditions, and measuring health-related outcomes in a way that captures changes for people and for populations. The overarching goal is to reduce disease burden and improve health by acting on the underlying structures that generate inequities and poor outcomes.

The mechanism is an NIH R01 research project grant, which typically supports substantial, hypothesis-driven research and can accommodate complex intervention designs, strong analytic plans, and meaningful partnerships. At the same time, the FOA clearly states that clinical trials are not allowed under this particular announcement. That restriction generally signals that the work should not be proposed as a clinical trial as NIH defines it (for example, prospectively assigning individuals to an intervention to evaluate effects on health-related biomedical or behavioral outcomes). Applicants would need to ensure their study design fits NIH guidance for "clinical trials not allowed," often by focusing on population-level intervention research that does not meet the NIH clinical trial definition, or by using observational, quasi-experimental, natural experiment, policy evaluation, systems modeling, or other appropriate designs depending on the scientific aims.

The opportunity sits within NIH funding activity areas spanning education and health, and it is associated with CFDA numbers 93.121, 93.173, and 93.399. The program was created on November 21, 2017, and the original closing date listed is May 7, 2019 (which indicates this is a specific historical solicitation cycle; applicants would typically confirm current submission dates or any reissued announcements before planning a submission). The listing does not specify an award ceiling or an expected number of awards in the provided source data, which means prospective applicants would need to consult the full FOA text and NIH institute participation details to understand budget expectations, typical award sizes, and likely funding levels.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of domestic organizations and some non-U.S. entities. Eligible applicants include state, county, and city or township 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; tribal organizations that are not federally recognized tribal governments; public housing authorities and Indian housing authorities; nonprofit organizations with and without 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); and small businesses. The FOA also explicitly highlights additional eligible applicants such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions; Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs); Hispanic-serving institutions; Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs); Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs); faith-based or community-based organizations; eligible federal agencies; regional organizations; non-domestic (non-U.S.) entities (foreign organizations); and U.S. territories or possessions. Taken together, this signals that NIH is open to a wide range of applicants, including community-rooted organizations and institutions serving historically underrepresented groups, which fits the focus on social and structural conditions affecting population health.

In terms of what NIH is seeking conceptually, this FOA is best aligned with intervention research that treats health as the product of interconnected systems rather than isolated choices. Strong applications typically would justify why the target condition or outcome is meaningfully shaped by social, economic, or environmental factors, describe the multilevel pathways through which the intervention is expected to work, and propose rigorous methods to evaluate impact at appropriate scales. Because the announcement calls for transdisciplinary work, proposals often benefit from demonstrating genuine integration across fields (for example, public health, sociology, economics, urban planning, environmental science, education, behavioral science, health services research, and policy), along with partnerships that can support implementation in real settings where population health is produced and maintained.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Population Health Interventions: Integrating Individual and Group Level Evidence (R01) Clinical Trials Not Allowed" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.121, 93.173, 93.399.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2017-11-21.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2019-05-07. (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.

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