Cooperative Research Agreements Related to the World Trade Center Health Program (U01) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Cooperative Research Agreements Related to the World Trade Center Health Program (U01) funding opportunity (RFA OH 16-008) is a CDC program administered through NIOSH to support research required by the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act. The law created and later reauthorized the World Trade Center Health Program (WTCHP) and, under its research mandate, calls for rigorous studies on health conditions linked to the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The overall intent is to strengthen the evidence base around which physical and mental health problems are connected to 9/11-related exposures, reduce diagnostic and treatment uncertainty for WTC-related conditions, and ensure that findings translate into better care for affected people. The WTCHP administrator is expected to consult with the WTC Scientific/Technical Advisory Committee as research priorities are carried out, and the announcement reflects that consultation by emphasizing practical, scientifically strong work with clear relevance to monitoring, treatment, and future disaster response.

The opportunity is centered on understanding both established and emerging health effects among people exposed to the disaster, with particular attention to those who experienced heavy exposures during the tower collapses and those involved in rescue, recovery, and cleanup. Research may include epidemiologic and related studies involving enrolled WTC responders and certified-eligible survivors receiving treatment, sampled populations outside the NYC disaster area (including parts of Manhattan up to 14th Street and areas of Brooklyn), and appropriate comparison or control populations. A key theme throughout the announcement is that individual-level causation is often difficult to pin down, so the program prioritizes careful study design, strong analytic methods, and credible approaches to assessing exposure-response relationships and long-term outcomes.

NIOSH lists several major research areas of interest. One major track is linking 9/11 exposure to health conditions, including cancers, multisystem or autoimmune conditions, cardiovascular disease, and neurologic disease, with attention to factors like age at diagnosis. Another track involves describing patterns of illness across demographics and clinical profiles, such as how conditions cluster by age, gender, and comorbidity, and how illness progresses over time. There is also emphasis on understanding children who were exposed on or after 9/11, including potential long-term changes in health and development. In addition, NIOSH highlights work that deepens clinical understanding of WTC-related disease through phenotyping and the study of biomarkers, epigenetic changes, and other indicators that could improve detection, risk stratification, or treatment planning.

A substantial portion of the research agenda is oriented toward care delivery and real-world outcomes. The announcement explicitly encourages health services research and value-based care approaches that address chronic disease and complex comorbidity in disaster-exposed populations, with goals such as improving care quality, reducing errors, improving patient safety, and understanding costs and outcomes. Related topics include evaluating care models that can better manage interacting conditions and modifiable risk factors, and studying functional outcomes like work ability and longer-term occupational impacts among those affected by 9/11. Another “lessons learned” area looks at psychological resilience in disaster responders, including identifying and defining key components of resilience and well-being, and developing comparison groups for disaster-related research on key health indicators for first responders.

The FOA identifies a wide set of relevant conditions that applicants may address, reflecting the WTCHP’s broad clinical scope. These include respiratory diseases; cancer (including early detection and diagnosis of pre-malignant changes); cardiovascular disease; persistent psychiatric conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, and depressive disorders; cognitive changes; aging-related impacts such as premature aging and optimizing adaptation for productivity; neurologic diseases; aerodigestive conditions; multisystem or autoimmune diseases; and gastrointestinal and gastro-esophageal disorders. The target population is people exposed to the September 2001 terrorist attacks, including both responders and community members (often referred to as survivors). Responder groups include local responders such as FDNY and others who may still live in the NYC area or may have moved away, as well as responders who traveled from outside the NYC area to assist and later returned home. Survivor populations include adults and children exposed in the community, whether they remained in the area or relocated later.

From a program goals standpoint, NIOSH frames the research as a way to: meet the Zadroga Act research mandate; answer critical questions about physical and mental health conditions tied to 9/11; expand knowledge about health and well-being impacts; improve health care services delivered by the WTCHP; and apply lessons from 9/11 to improve preparedness and response in future disasters. The FOA references a WTCHP “research-to-care” logic model, underscoring that projects should be positioned to inform clinical practice, program operations, or policy decisions rather than remaining purely descriptive.

Funding is offered as U01 cooperative agreements, which generally means awardees should expect substantial involvement from the federal program staff compared with a typical grant. NIOSH structured the announcement to support different time horizons and research needs, requiring applicants to clearly state which project type they propose and justify that choice. Long-term projects can last up to five years with total costs up to $600,000 per year. Intermediate-term projects can last up to three years with total costs up to $500,000 per year. Short-term projects can last up to two years with total costs up to $350,000 per year. For the 2016 cycle described, NIOSH anticipated funding a mix of projects across these categories (approximately 2 to 3 long-term, 3 to 4 intermediate-term, and 3 to 4 short-term) to balance near-term program needs with longer-range scientific questions. The award ceiling listed is $600,000, and the closing date shown for this posting was April 19, 2016.

A notable operational requirement in the announcement is the emphasis on resource sharing and coordination with key WTCHP data sources. NIOSH considers sharing unique data and research resources developed through the WTCHP to be important for maximizing the value of the research portfolio. If a proposed project depends on collaborating with WTCHP Data Centers or the 9/11 Health Registry, applicants are expected to coordinate in advance with the relevant directors or administrators to confirm feasibility, including data access and availability of enough potential participants for recruitment. The application must document the recruitment plan and include evidence of this coordination, specifically a letter from the investigator to the Data Center/Registry/WTCHP and a response letter from the Data Center/Registry/WTCHP back to the investigator, along with any related budget needs for coordination activities. The FOA provides contact points for the FDNY program, Mount Sinai School of Medicine, NYC Health and Hospitals, and the WTC Health Registry to facilitate that pre-application coordination.

Eligibility is broad and includes many types of U.S.-based organizations that can carry out health research, such as state and local governments, public and private institutions of higher education, federally recognized tribal governments and certain tribal organizations, public housing authorities, nonprofits (both 501(c)(3) and non-501(c)(3)), for-profit entities (other than small businesses), and small businesses, with a note to review additional eligibility clarification in the full announcement. Overall, the FOA is designed to fund rigorous, policy- and care-relevant studies that advance understanding of 9/11-related exposure and disease, improve diagnosis and treatment, and strengthen the WTCHP’s ability to deliver effective services while informing responses to future disasters.

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