Evidence-Based Disease Prevention Grants Program

Overview: AoA has launched a grants program to demonstrate the efficacy of delivering evidence-based prevention programs for the elderly though community-based aging service provider organizations. The program will support local partnerships involving aging service providers, area agencies on aging, local health entities and research organizations. Grants will be for up to $250,00 per year for up to three years. AoA will also fund a complementary national technical assistance center to assist in the development of these programs.

The program is designed to:

• Strengthen the role of our Aging Services Network in providing high quality preventive health interventions targeted at the elderly.
  
  
• Effectuate AoA’s role in translating research into practice nationwide through its network of community aging services provider organizations – drawing on the Department of Health and Human Service’s research investments at NIA, CDC, AHRQ, and other sources (e.g. RWJF, John A. Hartford Foundation). AoA will begin to “take to scale,” in the community, interventions that show promise in research settings.
  
  
• Advance the President’s HealthierUS goal and the HHS Secretary’s prevention priority.

Eligible Applicants: Local public and/or non-profit agencies and organizations that primarily provide home and community-based social and/or nutritional services to older persons and are funded at least in part through the Older Americans Act.

Key Components of Local Programs:

1. Evidence-Based Interventions:

Grantees will be required to use interventions that are documented to be effective in reducing the risk of disability and/or disease. The areas where there is evidence documenting the effectiveness of risk-based interventions include:

• Physical activity
• Sound nutrition
• Smoking cessation
• Medication management
• Disease self-management (e.g. diabetes)
• Falls prevention
• Depression

2. Community Partnerships

Applicants will be required to involve key community partners in the design, implementation and evaluation of their project, including (at a minimum) a:

• Community Aging Service Provider Organizations to deliver the intervention.
• Health agency or organization to assure the quality of the health components of the program.
• Area Agency on Aging to assure the program is linked to appropriate collateral services, and to help promote the adoption and expansion of successful programs in the community.
• Research organization to assist with the translation of the research evidence and with the program evaluation.

3. Evaluation

Local projects will be required to evaluate the impact of their program on the participants (e.g., knowledge, behavior, self-reported health status, and satisfaction). Projects will also be required to conduct a formative evaluation to support continuous quality improvement.

4. National Technical Assistance Program:

To complement the grants program, AoA will establish a national technical assistance program to:

• Assist the grantees of this program in refining their interventions, performance goals and indicators, and their program evaluations.
• Assist AoA in the development and dissemination of best practice manuals, training materials, subject area monographs, etc (all will be available on AoA’s web site); also assist AoA in planning and conducting meetings, conferences, seminars, etc., as appropriate.
• Assist others in the Aging Services Network (SUAs, AAAs and Aging Service Providers) who are interested in implementing evidence-based interventions.
• Support the National Blueprint.

AoA Partnerships: AoA will involve others in the implementation of the program, including: NIA, CDC, AHRQ, ASPE, CMS, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, The John A. Hartford Foundation, and The Horizon Foundation.

Program Announcement and Application Instructions