The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service (FNS) works to end hunger and promote nutrition security through the administration of a variety of federal nutrition assistance programs.
Donor Name: United States Department of Agriculture (USDA)
State: All States
County: All Counties
Type of Grant: Grant
Deadline: 12/15/2023
Size of the Grant: More than $1 million
Grant Duration: 4 Years
Details:
WIC is a federal nutrition assistance program that serves pregnant, postpartum, and breastfeeding individuals; infants; and children up to five years old who are low-income and at nutrition risk. WIC provides nutritious foods, nutrition education including breastfeeding promotion and support, and referrals to health and social services to participants in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, 33 Indian Tribal Organizations, American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands.
The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) provides grants to states to provide supplemental foods, healthcare referrals, and nutrition education to pregnant and post-partum individuals, infants, and children up to age five who are low-income and found to be at nutritional risk. While WIC participation is shown to improve several maternal outcomes, more evidence, unique data sets, and innovative approaches to epidemiological evaluation are needed to understand and document the impact of WIC participation on maternal health, specifically the impact of WIC participation on maternal morbidity and mortality. The goal of this request for applications (RFA) is to initiate and support a rigorous academic research program that will build evidence of WIC’s impact on maternal health outcomes associated with morbidity and mortality.
To address these gaps and support current and future research into the impact of WIC on maternal health outcomes, the goal of this RFA is to facilitate rigorous academic research into WIC’s relationship to this important public health concern. The grantee is expected to propose a robust academic subgrant program to investigate this relationship using existing secondary data, identifying and constructing novel data sets to further examine this relationship, and by supporting and growing a diverse academic community that is invested in sustaining research related to the relationship between WIC and maternal health outcomes. Subgrant program analyses will be required to examine the prevalence of these conditions by participation in WIC overall and by race, ethnicity, and age. The findings from this analysis will inform actions to improve maternal health in groups at highest risk for maternal morbidity and mortality.
In addition to the activities specified below, FNS expects that Applicants will propose innovative approaches to meet the overall Goal and Objectives of this cooperative agreement:
- Objective 1: Research Subgrants During the period of performance of the cooperative agreement, the grantee shall initiate and maintain at least one round of a competitive subgrants program to support and foster innovative academic research.
- Objective 2: Supporting the Research Community The Cooperator will be responsible for expanding the existing network of researchers collaborating on efforts to understand the role of WIC in addressing maternal morbidity and mortality.
- Objective 3: Dissemination FNS values making knowledge gained through the research process available and actionable to program administrators, policy makers, program participants, the research community, and the public.
Funding Information
- Total amount of funding expected to award: $1,000,000.00
- Minimum award amount (award floor): $1.00
- Maximum award amount (award ceiling): $1,000,000.00
Period of Performance
Start and end date of the award: March 2024, not to exceed 4 years and 2 quarters.
Eligibility Criteria
Eligible entities are accredited public and private institutions of higher education (colleges/universities). There shall be a single Grantee, but the Grantee may partner with other organizations through subcontracting to meet RFA requirements.
Entities not meeting this status will be deemed ineligible and removed from competition without further consideration.
NOTE: Applicants must submit all required information with their application package, including but not limit to, the proposal narrative and budget narrative, to be considered a responsive applicant. Those applicants who fail to submit any required documents or forms will be deemed nonresponsive and therefore ineligible and removed from further consideration.
For more information, visit Grants.gov.
