New AHRQ Priority Area: Health Risk Assessments in Primary Care

On June 22, AHRQ released a notice (NOT-HS-10-018) to announce a new special emphasis: grants focused on health risk assessments (HA) in primary care settings. AHRQ’s goal is to use HA to improve the delivery of preventive care, and to improve communication between patients and clinicians.

Specifically, AHRQ will be funding grant applications that prose research in the following areas:

• The prediction of risk using HAs in the general adult, adolescent, and pediatric primary care populations. This includes the development, testing, and implementation of algorithms or other models for health risk assessment in primary care settings.
• The use of HA primary care settings to improve individual and population health outcomes. This includes methods for using HA information to guide the provision of evidence-based preventive services and effective care for persons with chronic illnesses; support of patient engagement and joint decision making; and methods for effectively eliciting HA information and communicating HA results.

Does this sound like your research? AHRQ will use R01, R18, and R03 mechanisms for applications focused on the use of HAs in primary care. Standard deadlines apply. AHRQ encourages applicants to indicate in their proposal that they are responding to NOT-HS-10-018, and to include a cover letter stating their interest in the topic. For more information, visit the AHRQ Funding Opportunities page.