The National Institute of Environmental Health Science (NIEHS), in partnership with Fogarty International Center (FIC), National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR), National Heart Blood and Lung Institute (NHBLI) and National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), is leading an NIH-wide Climate Change and Health Initiative (CCHI) with the goals of: reducing the health threats posed by climate change across the lifespan; improving the health of people who disproportionately affected by climate change impacts; and building health resilience among individuals, communities, and nations around the world. As a part of this CCHI, this NOSI encourages Phase I (R43), Direct to Phase II (R44) and Fast-track (R44) SBIR grant applications from SBCs to develop commercializable tools, resources, and approaches to capture the effects of climate change and the associated impacts of extreme weather events on human health and to support adaptation or mitigation strategies to minimize health hazards and impacts from climate change. Technologies may include new approaches for detecting climate change-associated exposures, including temperature and air quality, training tools on climate change and mitigation strategies for patients with underlying health conditions, intervention approaches for reducing contaminants water or in indoor air, modeling and prediction tools for climate-change-related weather events and related health effects, and technologies for delivery of health care, including mental health services to communities during extreme weather events.
Climate change poses substantial threats to human health across a wide range of illnesses and injuries, including asthma, respiratory allergies and airway diseases, cardiovascular disease and stroke, heat-related illness and deaths, reproductive, birth outcomes and developmental effects, mental illness, and extreme weather-related morbidity and mortality. Strong evidence indicates that climate change also disproportionately adversely affects communities that experience socioeconomic, behavioral, and environmental vulnerabilities. Such communities include underserved and health disparity populations, especially racial and ethnic minority populations, underserved rural populations, less privileged socioeconomic status (SES) populations, sexual and gender minorities (SGM), and those unduly burdened by exposure to environmental pollution. In addition to the need for research on understanding the effects of these emerging threats on human health, there is a significant need for adaptation efforts to reduce the hazards and negative impacts of climate change on human health. Development of innovative tools, technologies, methodologies on climate change and health will significantly increase the potential for understanding the complex drivers of adverse health outcomes and enable effective and impactful interventions.
This notice applies to due dates on or after September 5, 2022 and subsequent receipt dates through April 5, 2023.
NOT-ES-22-010