HEAL Initiative: Justice Community Overdose Innovation Network (JCOIN) - Phase II Methodology and Advanced Analytics Resource Center (UM1 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA DA 24 068

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA DA 24 068

This funding opportunity (RFA-DA-24-068) is a National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) cooperative agreement to support the HEAL Initiative through the Justice Community Overdose Innovation Network (JCOIN), Phase II. The basic premise is that the opioid crisis is heavily concentrated at the boundary between justice settings (jails, prisons, probation/parole, courts, reentry) and community health systems. Because people cycle between these systems, gaps in treatment, data sharing, continuity of care, and overdose prevention often show up most clearly during arrest, incarceration, release, and supervision. NIDA is using JCOIN to build a coordinated national research consortium that can test and scale approaches that improve how justice systems respond to opioid use disorder and overdose risk, while also strengthening links to community-based care.

JCOIN is intentionally structured as a tightly integrated network with three parts that are designed to work together rather than operate as separate projects. First are the Clinical Research Centers, each of which proposes a study that must be executed across at least five research performance sites, reflecting a strong emphasis on multi-site, real-world implementation. Second is a single Coordination and Translation Center, meant to harmonize operations across the network and help move findings into practice. Third, and the focus of this particular announcement, is a single Methodology and Advanced Analytics Resource Center. The applicant for this FOA is essentially competing to become the network-wide hub for study design support, analytic leadership, data methods, and advanced statistical and computational approaches that enable the whole JCOIN enterprise to produce reliable, comparable, and usable evidence.

The Methodology and Advanced Analytics Resource Center is expected to provide expertise and shared services that strengthen the scientific rigor and consistency of JCOIN’s work across justice and community contexts. In practical terms, this kind of center typically supports harmonized measures and common data elements, robust analytic plans for multi-site studies, methods for dealing with complex justice-health system data, and guidance on issues like missing data, clustering, site variation, implementation outcomes, mediation/moderation, and policy-relevant endpoints (including overdose events and treatment continuity). Because the work sits at the intersection of multiple systems, the center’s role usually includes helping studies navigate variation in local practices, heterogeneity in populations and settings, and the challenges of linking data across corrections, courts, treatment providers, and public health entities. The title also signals a focus on modern analytic capability (advanced analytics), which can include pragmatic trial analytics (even though this FOA is not itself for a clinical trial), causal inference approaches, predictive modeling for overdose risk, and methods that support translation of results into operational decision-making.

This award uses the cooperative agreement mechanism (UM1), which matters because it implies substantial NIH involvement during the life of the award. Unlike a traditional grant where the funded team operates more independently, a cooperative agreement generally means the awardee works in close partnership with NIDA and with the other JCOIN components, following network-wide governance, shared timelines, and coordinated deliverables. The “Clinical Trial Not Allowed” designation also clarifies that the applicant for this Resource Center should not propose to run an independent clinical trial under this award; the center is meant to provide methodological and analytic infrastructure and support to the network’s clinical research projects rather than serve as a trial-running entity itself.

Eligibility is broad and includes many domestic organization types: state, county, and city governments; special districts; independent school districts; public and state-controlled and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status (excluding higher education institutions in those categories); for-profit organizations other than small businesses; and small businesses. The announcement also explicitly notes additional eligible applicant categories such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, AANAPISI institutions, Hispanic-serving institutions, HBCUs, Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities, faith-based or community-based organizations, and certain tribal governments that are not federally recognized. Foreign institutions are not eligible to apply, and non-U.S. components of U.S. organizations are not eligible; however, foreign components as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement are allowed, meaning a U.S. applicant can include certain foreign elements if they meet NIH’s definition and justification requirements.

Administratively, the opportunity is listed under the NIH as the issuing agency, with a discretionary funding category and activity areas spanning education, health, and social services. The CFDA numbers associated with the announcement include 93.213, 93.279, and 93.865. The original closing date in the provided record is October 30, 2023, and the record does not specify an award ceiling or expected number of awards in the excerpt. Overall, the grant is aimed at selecting one central team to serve as the methodological backbone of JCOIN Phase II, enabling high-quality, comparable, and actionable research across multiple sites and jurisdictions, with the end goal of reducing overdose and improving evidence-based responses to opioid use disorder among justice-involved populations.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "HEAL Initiative: Justice Community Overdose Innovation Network (JCOIN) - Phase II Methodology and Advanced Analytics Resource Center (UM1 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.213, 93.279, 93.865.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2023-08-21.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2023-10-30. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: State governments, County governments, City or township governments, Special district governments, Independent school districts, Public and State controlled institutions of higher education, Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities, Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Nonprofits having a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Nonprofits that do not have a 501 (c) (3) status with the IRS, other than institutions of higher education, Private institutions of higher education, For-profit organizations other than small businesses, Small businesses, Others.

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