Secondary Data Analysis to Examine Long-Term and/or Potential Cross-Over Effects of Prevention Interventions: What are the Benefits for Preventing Mental Health Disorders? (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA MH 20 110

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA MH 20 110

This National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding opportunity, RFA-MH-20-110, supports an R01 grant for secondary data analysis focused on understanding how early-life prevention interventions may shape mental health outcomes later on. The central idea is to make better use of existing prevention trial datasets by combining, integrating, and harmonizing them so researchers can ask questions that a single study often cannot answer well on its own, especially questions about long-term impacts across childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. The FOA is explicitly for secondary analyses and does not allow clinical trials, meaning applicants are expected to work with data that already exist rather than launching new intervention studies.

The research aims emphasize two main goals. First, applicants are encouraged to use integrated datasets to identify and test risk factors and protective factors that are linked to later mental health outcomes. This can include examining how early environments, family and school contexts, developmental experiences, and other measurable factors predict mental health trajectories over time. Second, the FOA prioritizes evaluating whether prevention interventions delivered earlier in life show long-term effects on mental health, and whether they also produce cross-over effects, meaning beneficial outcomes that were not the original primary targets of the intervention. In practice, this could involve discovering that an early intervention designed to reduce substance use, improve parenting, strengthen social-emotional skills, or prevent conduct problems also reduces later depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts and behaviors, or indicators related to psychosis risk. These cross-over effects can be especially important for prevention science because they help clarify which early strategies may yield broad, downstream mental health benefits.

The mental health outcomes of interest include both common and serious concerns, with examples given such as depression, anxiety, suicidal ideation and behaviors, and psychosis-related behaviors. By focusing on long-term follow-up periods, the opportunity is geared toward clarifying whether early prevention efforts have durable effects that persist as participants age into higher-risk developmental windows, and whether those effects generalize across different domains of mental health. A major value of this approach is that harmonizing multiple trials can increase statistical power, improve subgroup analyses, and help determine whether findings replicate across different populations, intervention models, and implementation contexts.

The funding mechanism is an NIH discretionary grant (R01) within a health-focused activity category, associated with CFDA numbers 93.213, 93.242, and 93.313. The listed award ceiling is $500,000. The original application closing date was January 2, 2020, and the opportunity was created on February 6, 2019. Even though this specific posting reflects that historical window, the scope illustrates NIH priorities around leveraging existing trial data to answer prevention and developmental mental health questions at scale.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of organizations that can support advanced data work and collaboration. Eligible applicants include state, county, city or township, and special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; tribal organizations other than federally recognized governments; public housing authorities and Indian housing authorities; nonprofit organizations with or without 501(c)(3) status (excluding institutions of higher education in those categories); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; and small businesses. The FOA also highlights additional eligible applicant categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISISs), Hispanic-serving institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based and community-based organizations, certain tribal governments other than federally recognized entities, U.S. territories or possessions, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, and non-U.S. entities (foreign organizations). This wide eligibility reflects the collaborative nature of secondary data harmonization work, which often benefits from partnerships across universities, communities, and systems that originally implemented or studied prevention interventions.

Overall, the opportunity is designed to accelerate what can be learned from prior prevention trials by encouraging researchers to pool and standardize data, then use that stronger evidence base to map developmental pathways to mental health outcomes and to quantify the longer-term and broader mental health benefits of early prevention interventions. The emphasis on long-term and cross-over effects supports practical decision-making about prevention investments by identifying which early-life interventions may yield meaningful downstream reductions in mental health disorder risk.

• The National Institutes of Health in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Secondary Data Analysis to Examine Long-Term and/or Potential Cross-Over Effects of Prevention Interventions: What are the Benefits for Preventing Mental Health Disorders? (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.213, 93.242, 93.313.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2019-02-06.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2020-01-02. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $500,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

Apply for RFA MH 20 110

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