Development and Translation of Medical Technologies to Reduce Health Disparities (SBIR) (R43/R44) | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The Development and Translation of Medical Technologies to Reduce Health Disparities (SBIR) (R43/R44) opportunity, Funding Opportunity Number RFA EB 16 001, is a National Institutes of Health (NIH) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) grant program under the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It was posted on December 10, 2015, with an application closing date of July 6, 2016. The intent is to fund small business concerns that are building practical medical technology solutions specifically designed to reduce health disparities, meaning measurable gaps in healthcare access and health outcomes experienced by certain populations.

This FOA is focused on the development and translation of medical technologies, not just early scientific concepts. In practice, that means the program is looking for products or tools that can move along a real-world pathway toward adoption in clinical or community settings. The emphasis is on technologies that make care more reachable and outcomes better for groups that face persistent barriers, whether those barriers are geographic, economic, cultural, or systemic. The announcement makes clear that a strong proposal is one that does not treat the technology as the entire solution on its own, but instead shows how the product can actually be used and sustained in the settings where disparities occur.

A central requirement is that the proposed technology must be appropriate for the target population and context. The FOA highlights four key qualities: effectiveness, affordability, cultural acceptability, and deliverability. Effectiveness means it should meaningfully improve care or health outcomes and be suitable for the clinical problem being addressed. Affordability signals that the price point, operating costs, training burden, maintenance, and any required infrastructure should fit the realities of under-resourced environments. Cultural acceptability points to the need for design choices that align with patient preferences, language needs, trust considerations, and local norms. Deliverability means the technology can realistically get to the people who need it and be deployed where they receive care, including settings that may have limited specialist availability, limited broadband, staffing constraints, or fewer support services.

The FOA also requires that the application directly address the healthcare needs of a health disparity population. In other words, the proposal must clearly identify the disparity being targeted, define the population affected, and explain how the technology will reduce that specific disparity. Stronger applications typically connect the technology to a concrete care gap such as delayed diagnosis, lack of screening, poor chronic disease management, limited access to specialists, low adherence due to usability barriers, or lack of monitoring tools in remote or safety-net settings.

Another major feature of this opportunity is the collaboration requirement. Applicants must include a formal collaboration with a healthcare provider or other healthcare organization that serves one or more health disparity populations, and this collaboration must be in place during both Phase I and Phase II. The practical reason is straightforward: technologies aimed at disparity reduction often fail when they are designed without the workflows, constraints, and priorities of real-world safety-net or underserved environments. By requiring a formal partner, NIH is signaling that the development process should include input, testing, iteration, and validation in the types of settings where the technology is intended to be used, rather than relying only on laboratory results or assumptions about implementation.

In terms of structure, this is an SBIR mechanism using the R43/R44 format, which generally aligns with a phased approach. Phase I typically supports feasibility work, early prototyping, and proof-of-concept activities that reduce technical and implementation risk. Phase II typically supports further development, refinement, and steps toward validation and readiness for broader use. While the source data here does not list an award ceiling or expected number of awards, the overall design of the program suggests the funding is meant to help small businesses cross the difficult transition from idea to deployable, user-tested technology that can demonstrate value in disparity-impacted settings.

Eligibility is limited to small businesses, consistent with SBIR rules. The funding instrument type is a grant, and the activity category is health. The CFDA numbers listed for this opportunity are 93.286 and 93.307, which are identifiers used to classify federal assistance programs.

Overall, this FOA targets small companies that can combine product development with an on-the-ground implementation mindset. The ideal project is not just innovative, but also realistic about cost, usability, and adoption in underserved contexts, and it is built in active partnership with organizations that already serve health disparity populations.

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