Research Objectives

The goal of this initiative is to support family level health observational and intervention studies in the biomedical, clinical, population, behavioral or social sciences. Projects are expected to include family health measures (i.e., health outcome(s) or behavior(s) measures for 2 or more family members). Projects must include a focus on families from one or more NIH-designated populations that experience health disparities in the United States.

Studies to investigate mechanisms underlying family resilience or susceptibility to disease, observational studies, epidemiologic studies, and family intervention research may utilize tissues and biomarkers from individuals within a family unit. Studies using animal models will not be supported under this PAR.

Since health disparities are complex, multidisciplinary approaches encompassing multiple domains of influence (e.g., biological, behavioral, socio-cultural, environmental, physical environment) and multiple levels of influence (e.g., individual, interpersonal, neighborhood) to understand and address minority health and health disparities within the context which families are embedded (see the NIMHD Research Framework for more information) are encouraged. Studies involving primary data collection with human participants are strongly encouraged to incorporate Social Determinants of Health measures from the Core and Specialty collections that are available in the PhenX Toolkit (www.phenxtoolkit.org). Use of these standardized measures for individual demographic factors is required.

Studies should provide a conceptual model indicating the pathways and/or mechanisms between the family level, other determinants, and health outcomes. A life course perspective is encouraged with interventions focusing attention on transition points across the lifespan and associated risk and protective factors. Interventions that include health information technology applications (e.g. wearable, decision aids, health information portals) and/or social media elements to improve family health are encouraged.

Projects are encouraged to involve research collaborations with relevant partners, such as community organizations, clinicians, public health, and social and human service organizations, special interest groups, and faith-based organizations.  As appropriate for the research questions posed, involvement of key community members in the conceptualization, planning and implementation of the research is encouraged (but not required) to generate better-informed hypotheses and enhance the translation of the research results into pra