On August 17th, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), part of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), released a funding opportunity for innovative, non-clinical trial research projects involving mental health services. NIMH will consider a wide array of projects, with a focus on “understudied areas where new knowledge has the potential for high public health impact.” NIMH encourages practice-relevant, deployment-ready projects whose findings can be widely implemented in routine care settings.
Proposed research should seek to:
- Identify mutable factors that impact access, continuity, utilization, quality, value, and outcomes, including disparities in outcomes or scalability of mental health services;
- Develop and test new research tools, technologies, measures, or methods and statistical approaches to study these issues;
- Integrate and analyze large data sets to understand factors affecting mental health services outcomes using advance computational and predictive analytics approaches; and
- Wherever possible, leverage existing infrastructure and partnerships to accomplish these goals.
However, the scope of work may not involve a clinical trial or primarily involve the provision of direct services (e.g., creation of a clinic). Projects should involve other types of research, such as quasi-experimental studies, survey or qualitative research methods, clinical epidemiology, and development and evaluation of new research methods, measures, financing approaches, or statistical approaches related to mental health services research. Research may target:
- Patients;
- Providers;
- Health care leaders/administrators; and/or
- Health care systems or other organizations that provide services to individuals with mental disorders, including those with early psychosis or autism spectrum disorders across the lifespan.
Application budgets are not limited, but should reflect the needs of the proposed project. The scope of the proposed project should determine the project period, which is not to exceed five years. Eligible applicants include not-for-profit and for-profit organizations.
Three cycles of applications will be considered per year; applications for the first cycle are due on October 5th. Applicants may submit an optional, non-binding Letter of Intent to nimhpeerreview@mail.nih.gov by September 5th. Questions may be submitted to grantsinfo@nih.gov.
The funding opportunity is available here. Relevant pilot studies for mental health research may be submitted via the grant opportunity here.