Role of Environmental Stress in the Health Inequities of Alzheimer's Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) (R01 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA NS 24 024

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA NS 24 024

The NIH funding opportunity "Role of Environmental Stress in the Health Inequities of Alzheimer's Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) (R01 - Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" (RFA-NS-24-024) supports research aimed at explaining how environmental stressors contribute to unequal ADRD burden across communities, especially communities with fewer resources. The core idea is that ADRD is often more common and more severe among people living in disadvantaged environments, and that this pattern likely reflects more than genetics alone. The opportunity focuses on non-inherited influences that accumulate across a lifetime, including heat exposure, overcrowding, poor air quality, chronic noise, exposure to violence, and adverse childhood experiences. These factors are framed as part of the "exposome," meaning the total set of environmental exposures and related biological responses that shape health over time. The program is looking for studies that not only identify which stressors matter most, but also clarify how those stressors "get under the skin" through biological and psychosocial mechanisms that may accelerate cognitive decline or increase dementia risk.

A central emphasis is health inequities, particularly racial and ethnic inequities that are strongly tied to neighborhood conditions, environmental hazards, and chronic stress. The initiative is built around the recognition that environmental stress is a major driver of unequal outcomes, and that understanding those pathways is necessary for developing effective prevention strategies and interventions at the community or policy level. Projects responsive to this call would typically connect real-world exposures (for example, long-term air pollution or extreme heat) to ADRD-related outcomes (such as cognitive trajectories, biomarkers, neuroimaging measures, neuropathology, or clinically meaningful indicators of impairment), and then examine mechanistic links such as inflammation, vascular injury, sleep disruption, stress physiology, allostatic load, or other pathways relevant to brain aging. Because the FOA specifies "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," the intent is not to fund trials that prospectively assign an intervention to participants to test health outcomes, but rather to support observational, mechanistic, epidemiologic, or other non-trial human research designs consistent with the R01 mechanism.

This opportunity is offered as a discretionary grant under the NIH, with the funding activity category listed as Health and the CFDA number 93.853. The award ceiling is listed as $499,999. The original closing date provided is 2023-11-01, and the posting indicates it was created on 2023-07-25. While the record does not specify the number of expected awards, the mechanism is an R01, which generally supports substantial, multi-year research projects with a clear set of aims, a strong analytic plan, and well-justified resources. The subject matter suggests competitiveness will hinge on how well the application integrates exposure assessment with ADRD-relevant outcomes and a plausible mechanistic framework, as well as how directly it addresses inequities tied to environmental stress in lower resourced settings.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of institutions and organizations that can contribute to community-engaged or population-based ADRD research. Eligible applicants listed include state, county, city or township, and 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; public housing authorities and Indian housing authorities; Native American tribal organizations that are not federally recognized governments; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (other than institutions of higher education); for-profit organizations (other than small businesses); and small businesses. The opportunity also explicitly highlights additional eligible applicant categories that are especially relevant for equity-focused research capacity, including 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, Indian/Native American tribal governments other than federally recognized, and U.S. territories or possessions. Taken together, the eligibility list signals interest in partnerships that can authentically study exposures and lived experiences in communities disproportionately affected by environmental stress and ADRD.

In practical terms, this FOA is about moving beyond simply documenting disparities to pinpointing the environmental conditions that help produce them and the biological pathways that translate chronic stress and environmental hardship into dementia risk. Applications that align well will typically be grounded in rigorous exposure measurement (for example, geospatial heat indices, pollution monitoring data, neighborhood-level indicators of crowding or violence, or validated measures of childhood adversity), strong ADRD phenotyping, and a clear plan for disentangling confounding factors that often co-occur in lower resourced environments. The overall objective is to build actionable knowledge: identify which stressors are most harmful, for whom, at what life stages, and through which mechanisms, so that future prevention approaches can target the upstream environmental and social conditions driving ADRD inequities.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Role of Environmental Stress in the Health Inequities of Alzheimer's Disease-Related Dementias (ADRD) (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): 93.853.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-07-25.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-11-01. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $499,999.00 in funding.
• 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 NS 24 024

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