Technical Assistance for Response to Public Health or Healthcare Crises: OPIOID SUPPLEMENTAL

Description

Purpose: CDC announces a supplemental funding opportunity for national, partner organizations that were previously awarded under the CDC-RFA-OT18-1804 NOFO: Technical Assistance for Response to Public Health or Healthcare Crises.” The purpose of this supplemental funding opportunity is to support activities associated with the national response to the opioid overdose epidemic. Such activities include staffing, procurement, and direct technical assistance. Funds may be directed to efforts that are within the scope of CDC-RFA-OT18-1804: Technical Assistance for Response to Public Health or Healthcare Crises. Background: The United States is experiencing an opioid overdose epidemic. Opioids were involved in 42,249 overdose deaths in 2016 (66.4% of all drug overdose deaths), having increased by more than five times since 1999. In response to the epidemic, the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services has declared the opioid crisis a nationwide public health emergency under Section 319 of the Public Health Service Act. The National Center for Injury Prevention and Control’s Division of Unintentional Injury Prevention has funded national partner organizations through CDC-RFA-OT18-1804 to provide surge support to states as they work to respond to the opioid overdose epidemic and prevent future overdose deaths. These partners are meeting critical needs that states cannot fulfill with local expertise or complete quickly enough to be effective through their own hiring and procurement processes.This funding is intended to enhance activities associated with the national response to the opioid overdose epidemic. Such activities include staffing, procurement, and direct technical assistance to select jurisdictions. Award recipients will function as a rapid provider of information and/or resources, as well as a coordinator of the project management components involved. As a result, the award recipeients must demonstrate experience providing administration, oversight, and coordination for CDC-funded projects. Additionally, award recipients will be expected to work closely with state and local jurisdictions and other stakeholders working to respond to the opioid overdose epidemic and prevent future overdose deaths. Program Supplement Activities: The goal of this supplemental funding opportunity is to enhance activities of national partner organizations associated with the national response to the opioid overdose epidemic, supported by CDC to address two key strategies related to strengthening the U.S. public health system’s response to public health or healthcare crises: STRATEGY 1: Ensure Effective Process Implementation Process is a critical success factor in response efforts, where lives may depend on the speed of a transaction, placement of personnel, or delivery of equipment. Awardees must have strength in and be able to effectively perform the activities associated with each of the following process areas: Expedited Procurement (ability to supersede normal acquisition procedures to accelerate delivery); Agile Administration & Operations (ability to react to requests, develop plans, deploy resources, and perform administrative actions quickly and with highly-coordinated communication); and Strategic Partnering (access to and the ability to rapidly engage multi-sector partners to amplify, augment or otherwise improve response efforts). STRATEGY 2: Provide Critical Content Expertise The awardee's strength in process implementation (addressed by Strategy 1) serves as the foundation for delivering critical content expertise. Applicants must have demonstrated strength in and be able to provide support in one or more of the following content areas: Administrative Logistics (travel, transportation, shipping, printing, transcription, convenings and event planning, small purchases, etc.); Communications (situational awareness, risk communications, media support, project monitoring and reporting, cultural and lingual translation, graphics, writing/editing, training development and delivery, etc.) Human Resources & Specialized Expertise (recruiting, hiring, general staff augmentation, payroll, onboarding, orientation, and acquisition of specialized expertise, including but not limited to epidemiology, entomology, infectious disease, environmental health, emergency response, etc.) Direct Services ("Direct Services" here does not mean the provision of care; rather, it refers to an awardee performing specific emergency response activities on behalf of a third party, because of a gap in that third party's capabilities, and because CDC has determined that this gap threatens the effectiveness of the response as a whole) Proposed activities must be within the scope of CDC-RFA-OT18-1804. Additional details will be provided in the published announcement, to follow shortly.

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