Surveillance of Congenital Heart Defects Among Children, Adolescents, and Adults | CDC RFA DD 24 0051

Opportunity Information: Apply for CDC RFA DD 24 0051

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), through the National Center on Birth Defects and Developmental Disabilities (NCBDDD), is offering a discretionary cooperative agreement opportunity called "Surveillance of Congenital Heart Defects Among Children, Adolescents, and Adults" (NOFO CDC RFA DD 24 0051; CFDA 93.073). The grant supports non-research, population-based public health surveillance to better describe how people with congenital heart defects (CHD) are doing across childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, with a strong emphasis on health outcomes and health equity. The overall aim is to generate actionable, real-world information that can be used to identify gaps in care and opportunities to improve the health of everyone living with CHD, not just newborns.

The rationale for this funding is that CHD is common and costly, affecting about 1 in births in the United States and contributing substantially to infant mortality, long-term illness, and healthcare spending. Because screening, diagnosis, and treatment have improved, many more people with CHD, including those with severe conditions, now survive into their teen years and adulthood. CDC notes that roughly two million people in the U.S. are living with CHD, including more than one million adults, and a meaningful share of adults have severe CHD. Even with this growing population, most existing population-based CHD surveillance has historically centered on infants and early childhood, leaving major blind spots in understanding survival, comorbidities, healthcare utilization, and the factors that shape long-term outcomes later in life. This cooperative agreement is designed to close those gaps by extending surveillance beyond the newborn period and producing more reliable, jurisdiction-level data.

Applicants are expected to conduct surveillance for a defined population that can be an entire state or a region within a state. Rather than building an entirely new data collection system from scratch, the program expects recipients to identify individuals with CHD using existing data sources available in their jurisdiction. Examples listed include a state or jurisdiction birth defects surveillance system, electronic health records, and administrative datasets such as Medicaid or Medicare claims and hospital discharge data, along with other relevant sources recipients may have access to. The intent is to leverage established systems to identify CHD cases and track outcomes in a way that reflects the broader population, not only people seen in one clinic or hospital network.

The funded work is organized into two parts: a required Component A and an optional Component B. Component A focuses on producing descriptive, population-based information about people with CHD and their outcomes. Specific objectives include assessing survival, comorbidities, and healthcare utilization during 2021 to 2023, and examining characteristics associated with long-term outcomes among people with CHD. Component A also requires an explicit health equity lens, meaning recipients should examine differences in outcomes and access to care across groups and communities. In addition, recipients will examine state and national healthcare policies that affect people with CHD, recognizing that coverage rules, benefits, and broader health system policies can shape utilization and outcomes. Another required topic is COVID-19, including analysis of pandemic-era impacts such as changes in healthcare utilization among people with CHD. Finally, recipients must work with local and state partners to ensure the site-specific data produced are usable and inform local action, not just academic reporting.

Component B is optional and is centered on modernizing and scaling surveillance methods through machine learning. Under this component, recipients would develop and refine a machine learning algorithm using the surveillance data collected under Component A, then apply that algorithm to data collected from all Component A recipients. In practice, this is meant to help improve case identification, classification, or analytic efficiency across multiple jurisdictions, so that surveillance can become more consistent and scalable over time.

Eligibility is broad and is governed by Section 399V-2 of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. 280g-13). The eligible applicant list includes state, county, and city or township governments; special district governments; independent school districts; public and private institutions of higher education; federally recognized tribal governments and other tribal organizations; public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; and nonprofits with or without 501(c)(3) status, among others. The program anticipates making around 8 awards, with an award ceiling of $800,000. The original application closing date listed is 2024-05-14, and the opportunity was created on 2024-03-14. As a cooperative agreement, recipients should expect substantial involvement from CDC in areas such as technical assistance, alignment with surveillance standards, and coordination across sites, with the end goal of producing comparable, policy-relevant CHD surveillance findings that can drive improvements in care and outcomes across the lifespan.

• The Centers for Disease Control - NCBDDD in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Surveillance of Congenital Heart Defects Among Children, Adolescents, and Adults" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.073.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-03-14.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2024-05-14. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $800,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 8 candidate(s).
• 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, Others, Unrestricted.

Apply for CDC RFA DD 24 0051

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