Oral Anticancer Agents: Utilization, Adherence, and Health Care Delivery (R01) | PA 17 060

Opportunity Information: Apply for PA 17 060

The NIH funding opportunity "Oral Anticancer Agents: Utilization, Adherence, and Health Care Delivery (R01)" (FOA number PA-17-060; CFDA 93.395) supports research projects that tackle a growing practical challenge in cancer care: more anticancer treatments are taken by mouth, often at home, which shifts a lot of responsibility for correct use, monitoring, and side-effect management from clinics to patients and families. This FOA is designed to fund studies that map how oral anticancer drugs are currently being used and delivered in real-world settings, explain why adherence problems happen, and then test or build solutions that make use safer and more effective so that patient outcomes improve.

The FOA lays out three main research goals. First, applicants are encouraged to assess and describe the current landscape of oral anticancer medication utilization, delivery processes, and adherence. That can include documenting patterns such as initiation, persistence, dose interruptions, early discontinuation, and how medication access and follow-up are handled across care settings. Second, it calls for identifying barriers to adherence, specifically emphasizing structural, systemic, and psychosocial factors. In practice, that can mean studying issues like insurance coverage and cost sharing, pharmacy and distribution workflows, prior authorization delays, transportation and clinic access, health literacy, language barriers, mental health, social support, treatment beliefs, stigma, or the burden of side effects that leads patients to skip or change doses. Third, the FOA encourages the development of models and strategies to improve the safe and effective delivery of oral anticancer agents, with the explicit expectation that better delivery and adherence should translate into optimized clinical outcomes. "Models and strategies" can include care pathways, team-based management approaches, monitoring systems, adherence support programs, decision support, patient navigation, caregiver engagement approaches, or other delivery innovations that reduce errors and improve follow-through.

A key requirement is that proposed research should concentrate on at least one specific cancer type, class of oral anticancer drugs, and/or populations that experience cancer-related disparities. The FOA explicitly mentions disparity-focused groups such as older adults, people with low socioeconomic status, and racial/ethnic minority populations. This emphasis signals that NIH is looking for projects that do more than describe adherence in a general population; they want studies that can explain and reduce inequities in access, delivery quality, and outcomes when oral agents are prescribed.

The opportunity is intentionally broad about where research can be aimed, reflecting how adherence and safe use are influenced by multiple layers of the health system. Studies may focus at the patient level (including pediatric, adolescent, or adult patients), the patient-caregiver dyad, the provider level, the broader health care team, or the health care delivery system. The FOA also welcomes different study designs, including intervention studies, observational studies, and mixed-methods projects. For observational studies, it places a special emphasis on identifying modifiable risk factors, meaning the findings should point toward practical levers that could be changed later through interventions, rather than only documenting non-actionable associations.

This is an R01 research project grant, listed as a discretionary grant mechanism in the education and health activity category, and it was released by the National Institutes of Health. The original closing date shown in the source data is January 24, 2018. While an award ceiling and expected number of awards are not provided in the summary data, the intent is to fund substantial, hypothesis-driven or model-building research consistent with the R01 mechanism.

Eligibility is wide and includes many types of organizations that conduct health research or can partner in delivery-system and community-based work. Eligible applicants include state, county, city/township, and special district governments; independent school districts; public and state-controlled institutions of higher education; private institutions of higher education; federally recognized Native American tribal governments; tribal organizations (including those other than federally recognized governments); public housing authorities/Indian housing authorities; nonprofits with and without 501(c)(3) status; for-profit organizations (other than small businesses) and small businesses; and other entities. The FOA also explicitly highlights additional eligible groups such as Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISISs), Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), faith-based or community-based organizations, eligible federal agencies, regional organizations, non-U.S. (foreign) entities, and U.S. territories or possessions. Taken together, that list supports a wide range of applicant types, from academic medical centers to community organizations and health systems that can study real-world delivery barriers and test practical solutions.

Overall, this FOA is aimed at improving the day-to-day reality of oral anticancer therapy: ensuring patients can obtain these medications, understand and follow complex regimens, manage toxicities, and stay connected to clinical teams, all in a way that reduces preventable complications and improves outcomes, especially for groups that are most likely to face access barriers and uneven quality of care.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Oral Anticancer Agents: Utilization, Adherence, and Health Care Delivery (R01)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.395.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2016-11-28.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2018-01-24. (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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