Cross-Cutting NIH COVID Initiative
In the early stages of the pandemic, NIH leadership met to discuss cross-cutting initiatives to address COVID-19 research needs. One of these cross-cutting initiatives is the Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Impacts of COVID-19 in Vulnerable and Health Disparity Population Initiative that encourages research to: 1) improve the prediction of various mitigation efforts, 2) assess the downstream health and healthcare access effects from the economic downturn, and 3) evaluate digital and community interventions to ameliorate these health effects. The leading Institutes, Centers and Offices (ICOs) for this effort are the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), the National Institute on Aging (NIA), the Office of Extramural Research (OER), and the Office of Behavioral and Social Sciences Research (OBSSR). These ICOs lead the NIH-wide effort involving 21 NIH ICOs that include pooled funds along with $15 million from the Office of the Director (OD) jumpstart funds to launch and begin funding key aspects of this initiative.