Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Equity

The HHS Office of Minority Health (OMH) anticipates funding two cooperative agreements to support a Center for Indigenous Innovation and Health Equity (CIIHE). The CIIHE will support efforts, including research, education, service, and policy development, to advance sustainable solutions that address indigenous health disparities and advance health equity in American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) and Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) populations. Applicants will be required to address only one of the two focus populations per application. One applicant may submit more than one application, but each application must focus on only one population. The CIIHE will operate as a single initiative through two cooperative agreements - one with a focus on AI/AN populations and one with a focus on NHPI populations. Under the cooperative agreements, OMH will have substantial involvement in identifying priority areas to focus the CIIHE’s efforts such as the role of nutrition, food security, and physical activity in indigenous health disparities. OMH will facilitate the coordination and collaboration of project activities between the cooperative agreements to support seamless program implementation. Recipients will establish, convene, and manage a joint CIIHE advisory board. Recipients will be expected to increase community capacity to identify and use culturally and linguistically appropriate evidence-based and/or practiced-based interventions to address health disparities in AI/AN and NHPI populations. Project activities should include identifying and implementing culturally and linguistically appropriate education and training activities; partnering with indigenous leaders, AI/AN and NHPI communities and academic institutions; and disseminating culturally appropriate, evidence-based and/or practice-based interventions. Recipients will develop and implement a process and outcomes evaluation and communicate project findings. BACKGROUND: In the United States, AI/AN and NHPI populations experience a high burden of health disparities and inequities as demonstrated by higher prevalence rates of a wide range of diseases and disability status, adverse impacts of social determinants of health, and barriers to health care access. Studies have shown that culturally adapted and culturally grounded health and public health approaches and interventions that are aligned with indigenous communities’ cultural values and perspectives are effective in improving health outcomes.