Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Developing and Testing Multilevel Physical Activity Interventions to Improve Health and Well-Being

NIMHD supports highly innovative and promising research that tests multi-level physical activity intervention programs designed to increase and maintain health-enhancing physical activity in a wide range of population groups across the lifespan. These programs should be studied for scalability and sustainability for broad use across the nation.

Sociological models, including the NIMHD Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Framework, offer a systemic approach to understand and implement population-specific determinants for overall physical health. Proposed studies, at a minimum, must:

  1. Include physical activity as one of the primary outcomes.
  2. Inform development of or test an intervention or program that acts on at least two socioecological domains or levels.
  3. Demonstrate high potential for scalability and sustainability.

NIMHD is interested in supporting research on interventions for one or more populations experiencing health disparities that are deliverable and sustainable at settings where these populations live, work, play or receive health care. Intervention design should be based on theories from minority health and health disparities science. Settings of interest include, but are not limited to:

  • Low-resourced urban neighborhoods and communities.
  • Rural communities, small municipalities, and/or delivered within health care settings for medically underserved, e.g., Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs).
  • Tribal healthcare centers or with populations experiencing health disparities within any health care system.

NIMHD is interested in proposals of interventions that include one or more of the following :

  • Components that address the neighborhood social environment (e.g., social cohesion, community resilience).
  • Structural barriers and facilitators (e.g., neighborhood safety, safe paths for walking).
  • Strategies that mitigate against unintended policy level consequences (e.g., displacement of persons with low SES due to gentrification).
  • Novel behavior change strategies that target decision making processes (impulsive/executive decision systems) to follow through with healthy choices under conditions of high stressors (e.g., poverty, discrimination, or financial insecurity).
  • Incorporating cultural resiliency and protective factors and culturally tailored interventions and/or technology.

NIMHD’s FOAs for this NOSI include:

  • PAR-19-274: Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (Parent R01 - Clinical Trial Optional)
  • PA-20-183: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 - Clinical Trial Required)
  • PA-20-184: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 - Basic Experimental Studies with Humans Required)
  • PA-20-185: NIH Research Project Grant (Parent R01 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
  • PA-18-592: Research Supplements to Promote Re-Entry into Biomedical and Behavioral Research Careers (Admin Supp - Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

NIH Guide No.: NOT-OD-21-087 (Reissue of PAR-18-324: Testing Interventions for Health Enhancing Physical Activity (R01 - Clinical Trial Optional))


Page updated July 9, 2021