Call for Proposals: New Rankings Research Grants for 2021

We are excited to announce a new Call for Proposals (CFP) for CHR&R Research Grants, which support scholarly inquiry from outside the program to identify potential improvements to CHR&R tools to increase their strategic use and impact.  

The 2021 CHR&R Research Grants will play an important role in strengthening and enhancing the impact of efforts to improve health and increase health equity. This CFP includes four specific focus areas, informed by Public Health Critical Race Praxis:  

• Contemporary patterns of racial relations and spatial inequities using the CHR&R data and tools 

• Knowledge production that supports understanding of the context of racial inequity and systemic racism for inclusion in CHR&R 

• Conceptualization and measurement of spatial and racial differences that evolve CHR&R data sources, methods, tools, and narratives 

• Actions to counter racial, spatial, and power inequities to strengthen the potential for CHR&R to contribute to change 
   

Up to $600,000 will be available for research under this CFP, with a combination of: 

• Targeted studies - up to $50,000 for a maximum of 12 months. 

• Complex/comprehensive studies - up to $100,000 for a maximum of 12 months. Applicants seeking higher funding amounts will need to clearly specify the data collection or analysis steps requiring the higher amount. 
   

The Research Grants build off of previous rounds of funding, most recently in 2019, which supported efforts to advance methods and measurement for community health improvement and equity. Those Research Grants culminated in three innovative projects:  

• Exploring the use of statistical modeling to improve the quality of data for measures where there is not much data available (Drexel University)  

• Utilizing an existing Health Equity Metric (HEM) as the framework to calculate the size and scale of disparities by race or ethnicity that exist in key health metrics (UCLA) 

• Using statistical modeling to quantify how well a county is expected to perform in the Rankings, given its social and economic circumstances (Rutgers University) 
   

Brief Proposals are due June 4, 2021. Learn more about the application process and find answers to Frequently Asked Questions.  

Funding for these projects is provided by University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute as part of its grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to support the County Health Rankings & Roadmaps program.