Topics for Study

The Public Health Team is committed to strengthening our public health system so it is better prepared to promote health and protect all Americans.  The Public Health Team plans to explore the functions and structure of public health systems and its relationship with various sectors.

To provide a clear focus for applicants to The New Connections Initiative, each programming team was asked to develop specific research projects or questions that would help inform their strategies and grant making. These specific questions are described below. Applicants are asked to submit proposals for one of the topics described below.

Please note that not all teams have research questions at this time and the detail provided below by each team varies according to each team's needs and interests. Finally, some of the research questions will be more suitable for Junior Investigators and other questions will be more suitable for Senior Consultants. Thus, applicants should consider the following guidelines.

Senior Consultants
Projects that are more qualitative and can yield recommendations and products for the team should be answered by a Senior Consultant. Senior Consultants should refer to the examples of activities, potential products and deliverables that could be conducted included on page 2 of the Letter of Invitation.

Junior Investigators
Questions that would be more suitable for secondary analysis should be answered by a Junior Investigator. When responding to this solicitation, Junior Investigators must indicate how they will incorporate the secondary datasets when responding to research questions. Junior Investigators should provide a description of the data and rationale for its appropriateness given the research question.  Junior Investigators are responsible for identifying and acquiring the dataset.

Junior Investigators or Senior Consultants must respond to one of the following questions.

1. Public Health Laws, Regulations or Policies
Public health laws, regulations and policies are important tools that can be used to reduce health disparities and improve physical, behavioral, environmental, social and economic conditions that affect the public's health. We are interested in proposals that:

a. evaluate the effectiveness and impact of public health laws, regulations or policies.  This could include aspects such as implementation, enforcement and economic impact;

b. utilize laws, regulations or policies to address pressing public health issues (e.g., preparedness or underlying risk factors for chronic disease); and/or

c. demonstrate effective use of laws, regulations or policies to reduce inequities in health status, particularly in underserved and underrepresented groups. This could include policies related to transportation, housing, environmental exposures and other areas that affect the public's health.

2. Public Health Advocacy and Communications
Effective advocacy and communications are important for establishing and maintaining effective public health laws, regulations and policies. We are interested in initiatives that use communications, marketing, advocacy and grassroots outreach as well as other tactics. However, we are not interested in campaigns to brand public health agencies or activities. We will consider proposals that:

a. explore innovative approaches that engage and persuade policy-makers and other influentials to support public health objectives, in particular those focusing on activities that engage and/or serve vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations and those that link public health issues with other pressing community concerns;

b. assess the impact of communication and advocacy campaigns; and/or

c. determine and test innovative ways for health departments to communicate with hard-to- reach populations.

3. Health Disparities
Certain groups continue to experience a greater burden of diseases, injuries, disabilities and death than the general population. We are interested in proposals that:

a. identify and test innovative and effective ways for health departments and their partners to communicate with hard-to-reach and/or high-risk populations;

b. determine and test social indicators and tools to promote and assess health equity; and

c. support the capacity of public health agencies to address health inequities in their communities.