Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) Program: Community-Led, Health Equity Structural Intervention Initiative (OT2)

Overview

The Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) Program The Community Partnerships to Advance Science for Society (ComPASS) Program is intended to make greater advances in promoting health and preventing disease among disproportionately impacted populations. The impetus for ComPASS is the increasing recognition that advancing health equity is a complex challenge that extends beyond the reach of traditional health care settings, organizations, or research agendas. Rather than tackling health disparities by disease and condition or in a single population group, an NIH-wide strategy has been created within ComPASS to foster efforts to address structural causes of differential health outcomes, which will impact multiple diseases and conditions through several pathways. ComPASS aims to be catalytic and cross-cutting in its integration of multisectoral partnerships, comprised of community organizations; local, state, Tribal, and federal governments; academic institutions and research organizations; and the private sector to address structural inequities that enable health disparities to persist. The program is transformative in its focus on structural health equity interventions given the evidenced impact of structural inequities on health outcomes. ComPASS will focus on cultivating community trust and partnerships, building research capacity among community and relevant partners, and enhancing community organization readiness and competitiveness for future funding, contributing to greater diversity and inclusion in research. ComPASS is intended to serve as an initial launch to a longer-term and sustained commitment to eliminating health disparities and advancing health equity through development, testing and implementation of structural interventions. 

ComPASS Goals and Objectives The first overall goal of the ComPASS Program is to catalyze, develop, and rigorously assess community-led, health equity structural interventions that leverage multisectoral partnerships to advance health equity. A second overall goal of ComPASS is to develop a new health equity research model for community-led, multisectoral structural intervention research across NIH and other federal agencies. 

Three initiatives will be used to achieve the ComPASS Program goals: 
• The Community-Led, Health Equity Structural Interventions (CHESIs) will develop, implement, assess, and disseminate co-created community-led, health equity structural interventions in partnership with research organizations, by intervening upon structural factors that produce and perpetuate health disparities. 
• The ComPASS Coordination Center (CCC) will lead overall program management and coordination of administrative, data, capacity-building, partnership, training, and the National Health Equity Research Assembly (HERA) activities. 
• The Health Equity Research Hubs (Hubs) will be funded in FY 2024 and provide localized technical assistance and scientific support, as well as partnership support and research capacity-building and training previously designed in collaboration with the CCC. 

Through these initiatives, the ComPASS goals will be achieved by: 
• Supporting community organizations and their research partners in co-creating research to evaluate community-led, health equity structural interventions; 
• Engaging multisectoral partnerships, both locally and nationally, in advising, guiding, and sustaining the community-led health equity structural interventions;
• Building the research capacity in structural intervention research and implementation, community-led research, and sustainability among community organizations and their research partners; 
• Developing methods for capturing social determinants of health information, and collecting and analyzing data to evaluate outcomes from community-led health equity structural interventions; and 
• Disseminating promising approaches resulting from the community-led health equity structural interventions.

The following entities are eligible to apply under this ROA: Non-profits Other Than Institutions of Higher Education  • Non-profits with 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education) • Non-profits without 501(c)(3) IRS Status (Other than Institutions of Higher Education), including but not limited to: o Faith-based or community-based organizations o Tribal serving organizations o Patient or consumer advocacy groups o Social service organizations o Healthcare systems and providers (including Federally Qualified Health Centers) o School districts o Law enforcement and criminal/juvenile justice agencies o Neighborhood associations o Labor unions

The planned budget for the ComPASS Program is approximately $153 million over a 5-year period including this Community-Led, Health Equity Structural Intervention Initiative. NIH anticipates making 20-25 awards. 

A Letter of Intent (LOI) must be submitted by November 18, 2022.

Key Dates 
Informational Webinar Date (optional) October 2022. 
Informational webinar information and specific dates will be posted on the ComPASS Program website, http://www.commonfund.nih.gov/compass 

Letter of Intent Due Date November 18, 2022 A Letter of Intent is required. See Letter of Intent section. Invitation to Submit Full Application  December 8, 2022. Select LOI submitters will be invited to submit a full application. 
Application Due Date January 23, 2023.