Category: Current Affairs

Announcements from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

July 5, 2018

Funding Opportunities

CDC Funding for Public Health Crisis Response – July 30.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will make 69 cooperative agreements with awards ranging from $100,000 up to $5 million to increase capacity for responding to the opioid crisis, declared a public health emergency last year. Eligible applicants are state, local and territorial health departments and include federally-recognized Native American tribal governments.  Applicants must have functional public health emergency management already in place and aligned with CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program (PHEP) or the agency’s Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases (ELC).

Technical Assistance Agreement for Rural Opioid Response Program – August 10.  The Health Resources and Services Administration will award $3 million in a cooperative agreement with one entity to provide technical assistance (TA) support for rural communities engaging in activities to combat opioid use disorder (OUD) through the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program – Technical Assistance (RCORP-TA) .  Eligible applicants include domestic public or private, non-profit entities.  Domestic faith-based and community-based organizations, tribes, and tribal organizations are also eligible to apply.  The award recipient will provide resources and expertise in support of prevention, treatment and recovery efforts for OUD in rural areas.  See Events section below for assistance for applicants of RCORP-TA.

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Announcements from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

June 29, 2018

Technical Assistance Cooperative Agreement to Support the Rural Opioid Response Program

The Federal Office of Rural Health Policy will provide up to $3,000,000 per year over a four-year project period to support one technical assistance (TA) center to assist rural communities engaging in activities to combat opioid use disorder (OUD) through the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP).

The Rural Communities Opioid Response Program-Technical Assistance (RCORP-TA) is part of a multi-year, $130 million opioid-focused effort by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). The awardee of this cooperative agreement will be an entity with the ability to provide TA on a national scale and with extensive knowledge of OUD, and OUD prevention, treatment, and recovery efforts, in rural communities.

The RCORP-TA award recipient will provide in-depth technical assistance to HRSA’s RCORP award recipients, who will be multi-sector consortiums engaged in the planning and implementation of OUD prevention, treatment, and recovery initiatives. The TA provider’s support will promote strategies for capacity-building and sustainability, and will cultivate methodologies to assist RCORP award recipients as they address prevention, treatment, and recovery services in rural communities.

Eligible applicants include domestic public, private, and non-profit entities. Domestic faith-based and community-based organizations, tribes, and tribal organizations are also eligible to apply.

Note: The purpose of this funding opportunity is not for the receipt of TA, but to solicit an entity(s) to provide resources and expertise in support of the execution RCORP activities. 

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Announcements from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

June 29, 2018

What’s New

Call for Grant Reviewers.  The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) relies on grant reviewers to select the best programs from competitive groups of applicants.  Over the coming months, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) will be competing a number of programs, including the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program-Planning, and will need more reviewers than usual, particularly those with expertise in rural and mental/behavioral health.  Reviews are typically held remotely over a period of a few days and reviewers who participate and complete their assigned duties will receive an honorarium.  Learn more and register to become a potential reviewer at the link above. Registration is easy and does not commit you to serving as a reviewer.  Please consider lending your expertise to these important initiatives.

Locate HIV/AIDS Medical Providers.  HRSA’s Ryan White HIV/AIDS Bureau recently launched a re-design of their HIV Testing Sites & Care Locator.  Users of the website or cell phone app will be able to search by their current location and find results for nearby testing services, housing providers, health centers and other service providers displayed on a dynamic map.  The tool uses open data from agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to identify nearby service providers, their contact information and directions to their location.  The CDC has shown that suburban and rural areas in certain parts of the country have seen an increase in new cases.  Preventive treatment for those who are high-risk, and proven viral suppression for HIV-infected individuals can reduce the number of new infections.

Call for Posters: Rural HIV Research and Training Conference – July 15.  Planners for the Sixth Annual Rural HIV Research and Training Conference have closed the call for abstracts and presentations, but still seek proposals for posters that will be displayed at the event.  Preference will be given to proposals that include objectives and learning outcomes that present new information and evidence-based tools to address the challenges of the HIV/AIDS epidemic. They must also provide a clear explanation of how the proposal is relevant to rural populations in one of four conference tracks:  1) clinical research, 2) prevention and intervention, 3) family and community, 4) advocacy.

Funding Opportunities

Funding for Full-Service Rural Schools Program – July 13.  The U.S. Department of Education (ED) Full-Service Community Schools program supports the planning, implementation, and operation of comprehensive academic, social, and health services in high-poverty schools.  Applicants must propose to provide at least three eligible services, including “social, health, nutrition, and mental health services and supports.”  ED will prioritize proposals serving high-poverty school districts in rural areas. Whole School, Whole Community, Whole Child (CDC) and school-based services integration are two models by which schools can play a vital role in improving the health of rural residents.

DOT Grants for Buses and Bus Facilities – August 6.  The U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) will make 150 awards of up to $36.6 million “to assist in the financing of buses and bus facilities capital projects, including replacing, rehabilitating, purchasing or leasing buses or related equipment, and rehabilitating, purchasing, constructing or leasing bus-related facilities.”  Eligible applicants are city, state, and county governments, including federally-recognized tribal governments.  Transportation is an important social determinant of health in rural communities, allowing access to jobs, nutritious food and health care.

SAMHSA State Opioid Response Grants – August 13.  The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) will make 59 awards to state governments for prevention, treatment and recovery efforts for opioid use disorder (OUD).  Grantees of the program will use data to identify gaps in availability of treatment by geographic, demographic and service-level terms, and use evidence-based implementation strategies “to identify which system design models will most rapidly and adequately address the gaps in their systems of care.”

SAMSHA Tribal Opioid Response Grants – August 20. In addition to the State Opioid Response Grants, SAMHSA will make 263 awards to supplement current activities for federally-recognized American Indian/Alaska Native tribes or tribal organizations to increase access to culturally appropriate and evidence-based treatment of OUDs.

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Announcements from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

June 21, 2018

What’s New

FCC Approves Expansion of Rural Broadband Funding.  On Tuesday, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to approve a 40 percent increase in annual funding for the Rural Health Care Program (RHCP), raising its cap to $571 million per year.  The RHCP provides subsidies that allow rural health care providers to get telecommunications services at rates comparable to urban areas, where the cost is typically lower.  In the previous two years, requests for funding superseded the $400 million annual cap.
CDC: Obesity Prevalence In Rural Areas.  The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released data showing a significantly higher prevalence of obesity (34 percent) among adults in rural counties compared to those in urban counties (29 percent).  The CDC’s Division of Nutrition, Physical Activity and Obesity looked at self-reported data from 2016 in the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System and found that  “in 24 of 47 states, obesity prevalence was significantly higher among persons in nonmetropolitan counties than among those in metropolitan counties; only in Wyoming was obesity prevalence higher among metropolitan county residents.”

EPA Provides Support to Rural Communities.  On June 14, the Environmental Protection Agency announced technical assistance for six rural communities through Healthy Places for Healthy People, a federal initiative that engages local leadership “to create walkable, healthy, economically vibrant downtowns and neighborhoods.”  Experts will meet with partners in each community – located in Alabama, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina and Washington state – to identify local assets that can be used to support health and economic revitalization.

CMS Opioids Roadmap.  Last week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) published a roadmap outlining the agency’s efforts to address the opioid epidemic.  Lack of resources, health care infrastructure and workforce has meant a greater impact on rural communities, and CMS provides a look at how they’re monitoring the situation and using data to better understand patterns and best practices for prevention and treatment.

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NHSC New Site Application Cycle is Now Open!

June 20, 2018

The 2018 NHSC New Site Application is now open and will close on August 14, 2018 at 11:59 PM ET. Eligible sites include health care facilities that generally provide outpatient, ambulatory, and primary health care services (medical, dental, and behavioral) to populations residing in high-need urban and rural areas.

New This Year!

NHSC recently received $105 million for future NHSC Loan Repayment Program awards that expand and improve access to quality opioid and substance use disorder treatment in rural and underserved areas. Outpatient substance use disorder (SUD) treatment facilities are also now eligible to apply if you provide any of these services:

  • General Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Treatment
  • Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT)
  • Opioid Treatment Program (OTP)

Interested sites are encouraged to read the 2018 NHSC Site Reference Guide and review the new SUD New Site Documentation for all requirements.

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