Funding Opportunity Number: PAR-24-110
Deadlines: October 5, 2024, November 5, 2024
Research Objectives
The overall of objective of this initiative is to support the development and testing of non-pharmacological interventions conducted across multiple levels and domains of influence to promote sleep health, treat sleep disorders, reduce sleep health disparities, and/or examine sleep as a modifiable health factor to reduce disparities for other health outcomes. This initiative emphasizes promoting interventions to improve sleep health via addressing one or more behavioral, social, environmental, or structural determinant(s) of sleep health or deficiencies.
Interventions should be based on conceptual models that propose mechanisms of action and pathways explaining sleep health or sleep health disparities, and must focus on one or more NIH-designated populations that experience health disparities in the U.S. and its territories (Black or African American, Hispanic or Latino, American Indian and Alaska Native, Asian, or Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander persons, socioeconomically disadvantaged populations, underserved rural populations, sexual and gender minority [SGM] individuals, and persons living with disabilities). Projects that focus on rural populations, SGM individuals, or persons living with disabilities should prioritize examining the intersections with race and ethnicity or socioeconomic disadvantage. Since sleep disparities begin in early life and occur across the lifespan, interventions across the life course are encouraged, as well as those that consider key life transition points known to co-occur with changes in sleep (e.g., the pre/peri/postnatal periods, parenthood, or during periods of unemployment). Interventions may consider multiple facets of sleep health, including sleep quality, quantity, efficiency, and timing. The expectation is that improving sleep health and treating sleep disorders will not only help individuals feel better, but also may translate to improvements and reduce disparities in other health outcomes (e.g., cardiovascular disease, mental health).
Studies supported under this PAR are encouraged to engage meaningfully and work closely with communities affected by sleep health disparities to inform study design, analysis, and dissemination. Randomized controlled trials may not always be feasible when studying sleep disparities. Still, it is imperative that research studies have sufficient rigor to ensure confidence in results. Investigators may select other research designs that will provide robust evidence of intervention effectiveness, including quasi-experimental designs, such as an interrupted time series design, or stepped-wedge cluster randomized designs in which all subjects receive the intervention. Further, hybrid effectiveness-implementation designs are encouraged that support early investigation of implementation processes while also testing intervention effectiveness. Intervention designs that lack comparison conditions or sites (e.g., an intervention implemented in a single clinic or school) are strongly discouraged. Investigators should justify their research design selection and provide adequate details for their ability to execute a rigorous and appropriate analysis of study data. Investigators are strongly encouraged to employ a common set of tools and resources that will promote the collection of comparable data on social determinants of health (SDOH) across studies. Studies should incorporate measures from the Core and Specialty collections that are available in the SDOH Collection of the PhenX Toolkit (www.phenxtoolkit.org. Applicants are also encouraged to carefully measure functional and global symptoms, including depression, anxiety, level of energy, feeling sleepy, etc., and to use objective (e.g., using wearable devices), in addition to self-report, measures of sleep.
For more information, please see the opportunity website.