Medical care alone is insufficient to ensure better health and well-being.1 Understanding the role of factors such as social determinants of health, social risk factors, and health-related social needs is a crucial component of establishing equitable health for all.
The World Health Organization recognized the social determinants of health (SDOH) as the structural determinants and conditions in which people are born, grow, live, work, and age that affect health, functioning, and quality of life. There are currently five main domains of SDOH, including economic stability, neighborhood and built environment, education, social, and community context, and health and health care. Each of these domains may have relevance at the individual, neighborhood, and environmental level. Social risk factors are specific adverse conditions associated with poor health, such as social isolation or housing instability.
Health-related social needs is a term developed by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services for use in the Accountable Health Communities Screening Tool. There are five core domains and eight supplemental domains of health-related social needs. The five core domains include housing instability, food insecurity, transportation problems, utility help needs, and interpersonal safety. The eight supplemental domains include financial strain, employment, family and community support, education, physical activity, substance use, mental health, and disabilities. The patient’s perspective, preferences, and priorities for connections or next steps are an important inclusion in health-related social needs screening.
Research has begun to explore the role of SDOH, social risk factors, and health-related social needs on cardiovascular health and well-being. Early studies have often been limited by small sample sizes and underrepresentation of ethnic and racial groups, women, and LGBTQ communities.
The American Heart Association is looking to fund investigators who will recruit populations at risk of hypertension including, but not limited to, young Black and/or Hispanic women, and evaluate the role of need-specific interventions on blood pressure control. Recruited participants must join the Research Goes Red Registry in order to be eligible for the proposed study.
Proposals should be focused on health-related social needs in under-served female populations, for example: housing instability, food insecurity, transportation problems, interpersonal safety, financial strain, employment, family and community support, education, physical activity, substance use, mental health, and disabilities.
We are looking for a cross-disciplinary team of experts, community partners, and organizations with expertise in qualitative and quantitative sciences, hypertension, women’s health, or data science.
Deadlines:
- Required Letter of Intent: Feb. 14, 2022
- Invited Full Applications: April 1, 2022
Institutional Eligibility / Location of Work:
AHA awards are limited to U.S.-based non-profit institutions, including medical, osteopathic and dental schools, veterinary schools, schools of public health, pharmacy schools, nursing schools, universities and colleges, public and voluntary hospitals and others that can demonstrate the ability to conduct the proposed research. Applications will not be accepted for work with funding to be administered through any federal institution or work to be performed by a federal employee, except for Veterans Administrations employees.
Eligibility of Project PIs:
- Must hold a doctoral-level degree.
- Must hold a faculty-rank position of any level. This award is not intended for trainees.
• Up to $225,000/year ($450,000 total) • An additional Amazon Web Services service credit for use of the American Heart Association Precision Medicine Platform may be provided for computational time, use of AWS tools and infrastructure, and storage. Credit amount will be determined based on estimated need over duration of the grant.