Advancing Interventions to Improve Medication Adherence (R01) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The NIH funding opportunity titled "Advancing Interventions to Improve Medication Adherence (R01)" (Funding Opportunity Number PA-14-334) supports Research Project Grant (R01) applications focused on designing and testing interventions that can meaningfully increase how well people take their prescribed medications. The program is coordinated through the NIH Adherence Network and led by the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR), with participation from multiple NIH Institutes and Centers. The central emphasis is on intervention research with a clear plan to move the needle on adherence in real people, rather than purely descriptive work on why nonadherence happens.

Projects may focus on adherence for a single disease or chronic condition, such as hypertension, where consistent medication use is critical for controlling blood pressure and preventing downstream complications. They may also address adherence intended to prevent recurrence or progression, such as long-term therapies in cancer survivorship. The FOA also explicitly allows and encourages applications targeting people managing multiple comorbid conditions, recognizing that polypharmacy, competing health demands, and overlapping behavioral and social barriers can make adherence especially challenging in populations dealing with combinations such as hypertension, diabetes, alcohol use disorders, and HIV/AIDS. In other words, applicants are not limited to one therapeutic area; the unifying requirement is that the proposed work centers on improving medication-taking behavior in a way that is likely to produce measurable health benefits.

A strong, well-articulated theoretical or conceptual framework is presented as a key expectation for responsive applications. This means proposals should do more than list intervention components; they should explain why those components should work, grounded in an established behavioral, social, clinical, or implementation-oriented model. Reviewers are being signaled to look for a coherent logic model connecting determinants of adherence (for example, beliefs about medication, habits, side effects, access barriers, regimen complexity, mental health, substance use, health literacy, clinician-patient communication, or structural constraints) to specific intervention strategies and to anticipated improvements in adherence and health outcomes.

On measurement, the FOA makes it clear that self-report alone is not sufficient. While patient-reported adherence can be included as a primary outcome, each study must also incorporate at least one non-self-report measure of adherence. Examples provided include pharmacy refill records and electronic monitoring, but the intent is broader: the research design should include an objective or externally verifiable adherence indicator that strengthens confidence in the findings. Beyond adherence metrics, applicants are encouraged to include a relevant health outcome or biomarker expected to change if adherence improves. The FOA lists examples such as blood pressure for antihypertensive therapy, HIV viral load for antiretroviral adherence, cholesterol levels for lipid-lowering medications, and HbA1c for diabetes management. For conditions without a well-established biomarker, the announcement notes that a clinical assessment can fill this role, such as medication blood levels, structured diagnostic interviews, or independent clinician ratings of symptoms and behaviors. The through-line here is that NIH wants adherence outcomes linked to clinically meaningful endpoints, not adherence measured in isolation.

Administratively, this is a discretionary grant opportunity using the NIH R01 mechanism. It was posted in September 2014, with the final listed closing date in January 2018 and an archive date in February 2018, indicating the specific announcement is no longer active, though similar NIH adherence-focused opportunities may exist under newer FOAs. No cost sharing or matching is required. The activity category is listed broadly under education, food and nutrition, and health, and the opportunity is connected to multiple CFDA program areas spanning communication disorders, complementary and integrative health, mental health, alcohol research, nursing research, cancer prevention and treatment, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and kidney diseases, and vision research. This cross-cutting footprint reflects that medication adherence is a common bottleneck across many diseases and care settings.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of domestic organizations and governments, such as public and private institutions of higher education, nonprofit organizations (including 501(c)(3) and certain non-501(c)(3) entities), for-profit organizations (including small businesses and other for-profits), independent school districts, and a range of state, county, city/township, special district, and tribal governments. The FOA also calls out additional eligible applicants such as Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Hispanic-serving institutions, tribally controlled colleges and universities, Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian serving institutions, and faith-based or community-based organizations, among others. At the same time, it restricts foreign involvement: non-U.S. entities and foreign institutions are not eligible to apply, non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are not eligible, and foreign components as defined by NIH policy are not allowed. This means applicants need to plan for a fully domestic project footprint under NIH definitions.

In practical terms, the opportunity is aimed at teams that can design a theoretically grounded adherence intervention, implement it with rigorous methods, and evaluate it using both objective adherence measures and clinically relevant outcomes. Successful proposals under this FOA would typically be expected to show a tight alignment among the targeted population and condition(s), the barriers the intervention is meant to address, the mechanism by which the intervention will change adherence behavior, and a measurement plan that can demonstrate not only improved adherence but also downstream improvements in health indicators that matter to patients and clinicians.

Browse more opportunities from the same agency: National Institutes of Health

Browse more opportunities from the same category: Education Food and Nutrition Health

Next opportunity: Advancing Interventions to Improve Medication Adherence (R21)

Previous opportunity: Effective Mobile and Digital Communication for Audio Description of Unigrid Print Brochures

USGrants.org Applicant Portal:

Are you interested in learning about about how to apply for this government funding opportunity? You can create a free applicant account and receive instant access to our applicant portal that many business owners like you have benefited from.

Apply for PA 14 334

 

[Watch] how do funding administrators access proposals?

Applicants also applied for:

Applicants who have applied for this opportunity (PA 14 334) also looked into and applied for these:

 

Grant application guides and resources

It is always free to apply for government grants. However the process may be very complex depending on the funding opportunity you are applying for. Let us help you!

Apply for Grants

 

 

Premium leads for funding administrators, grant writers, and loan issuers

Thousands of people visit our website for their funding needs every day. When a user creates a grant proposal and files for submission, we pass the information on to funding administrators, grant writers, and government loan issuers.

If you manage government grant programs, provide grant writing services, or issue personal or government loans, we can help you reach your audience.

Subscribe to Leads

 

Request more information:

Would you like to learn more about this funding opportunity, similar opportunities to "PA 14 334", eligibility, application service, and/or application tips? Submit an inquiry below:

Don't forget to subscribe to our grant alerts mailing list to receive weekly alerts on new and updated grant funding opportunities like this one in your email.