This notice announces the opportunity to apply for funding under the U4D Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Pregnancy-Related Care Research Network Program (PRC-RN). The purpose of this program is to establish and maintain an interdisciplinary, national, multi-center practice-based research forum for scientific collaboration and infrastructure building. The PRC-RN will provide national leadership to advance the evidence base on effective interventions1 that address maternal health including, but not limited to, pregnancy, pre-conception care, inter-conception care, maternal morbidity, maternal mortality, and current and emerging issues and gaps in research and practice, such as models of delivery of pregnancy-related care in settings with limited resources in the United States. The PRC-RN will: • Lead, promote, and coordinate national research activities to improve pregnancy-related health care and maternal health, especially addressing barriers to access quality services for underserved populations; • Develop and maintain an infrastructure to support a portfolio of multi-site, interdisciplinary research focused on fostering the implementation of multi-site intervention research studies, translating of research to policy and practice, and providing a mentoring environment to train a new generation of clinical and non-clinical researchers in applied and translational pregnancy-related research; and • Address, where applicable, the following U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) and Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) priority areas namely, mental health, opioid use disorder, prescription drug pricing, maternal mortality, and telehealth. • Indicate how study findings will further develop the evidence base, where relevant for this program. The recipient of the cooperative agreement is encouraged to leverage existing work in the field, as appropriate, and extend the impact of HRSA’s existing programs and resources in the areas of maternal and women’s health. For example, the Alliance for Innovation on Maternal Health (AIM) assists state-based teams with the implementation of maternal safety bundles. Safety bundles are small, straightforward sets of evidence-based practices, that, when performed collectively and reliably, have been shown to improve patient outcomes. These bundles improve the quality and safety of maternity care with the goal of reducing maternal morbidity and mortality. As of August 2019, there are 27 states enrolled in AIM and approximately 1,300 hospitals participating in bundle implementation. Additional information about other HRSA programs on maternal and women’s health can be read at: https://mchb.hrsa.gov/maternal-child-health-topics/maternal-and-womens-health. Section IV provides more information about cooperative agreement activities.
