Okay, so we'll go to the next slide.
So here's our overview of our agenda for today.
Our team is going to provide a high level summary of the notice of funding
opportunity, provide a program overview, we'll review important dates and key
components and strategies, and then we'll conclude with our with
resources and questions. And so
just wanting to remind folks that you can raise your hand if you have questions,
but we'll also unmute your mic when you are calling on for your question.
But please feel free to put questions in the chat as well.
Next slide.
So this NOFO is designed to strengthen our nation's ability to prevent, detect,
and respond to infectious disease threats by leveraging strong partnerships,
workforce development, health messaging, and emergency response capabilities.
Furthermore, this NOFO intends to
expand training for infection prevention and control,
combating antimicrobial resistance, enhanced engagement of frontline health
care and public health workers, improved health care facility resilience,
improved coordination and search staffing during public health responses.
Ultimately, this NOFO
seeks to build and sustain national partnerships that will enhance
preparedness, strengthen health care safety
infrastructure, improve our ability, improve our collective ability to respond
effectively to current and emerging infectious disease threats.
Next slide.
This NOFO is structured as a multi-component NOFO. With that in mind,
let's take a closer look at how the program and how organizations can
participate. So I'll begin with the overview of the
multi-component framework that serves as the foundation of this funding opportunity.
Applicants may submit a single integrated application that includes work plans and
budgets for multiple components. Component 1 is required for all
applicants and serves as the foundational infrastructure component that supports
successful implementation of program activities.
This structure is designed to strengthen accountability and promote coordinated
implementation. It also helps to sustain essential
personnel, administrative, and operational functions during funding
disruptions or delays. By supporting a shared infrastructure,
this approach helps reduce the need for individual projects to absorb
these costs, allowing more resources to be directed
towards programmatic activities and public health impact.
Next slide.
The component structure is one of the most important aspects of this funding
opportunity because it determines how applicants will organize their proposed
work. As we move into the next section, we'll review each component,
the activities associated with it, and how the components work together to
support a coordinated and comprehensive public health approach.
Next slide.
So now let's turn our attention to the four program components that make up this
funding opportunity. Together, these components provide the framework
for strengthening infectious disease prevention, detection, preparedness,
and response capabilities. First, Component 1 is the required
infrastructure component. It supports that foundational staffing,
systems and operational capacity needed to successfully manage and implement
program activities. It is important to remember that
Component 1 is required for all applicants.
Component 2 focuses on emerging and re-emerging pathogens and supports
efforts to strengthen national disease prevention
detection, preparedness, and response capabilities.
Component 3 focuses on antimicrobial resistance and healthcare associated
infections through education, communication, implementation,
and adoption of evidence-based prevention strategies. Lastly,
Component 4 supports outbreak and emergency response activities and
provides the flexibility to rapidly address
emerging public health threats when needed. Components 2, 3,
and 4 allow organizations to align their expertise and propose activities with
specific public health priorities.
Next slide.
So now I'll turn it over to Sue Visser to
provide a quick introduction
of our EZID organization.
Thank you so much. Hello, my name is Sue Visser,
and I am the Deputy Director for Policy and Extramural Program here in the
Division of Vector-Borne Diseases. And I am pleased to share with you that
this Notice of Funding Opportunity announcement is brought to you by the
National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases,
one of the infectious disease centers here at CDC.
So NCEZID is made up of seven divisions and three
offices that work with partners throughout the United States and around
the world to prevent illness, disability, and death caused by a wide range of
infectious diseases. The diverse workforces of these divisions
support our ability to identify and respond to emerging and re-emerging
infectious diseases with your partnership. DHQP and DVBD are very proud to be
administratively supporting the direction and management of this cooperative agreement
but work might be funded on the SNOFO from any of the center's divisions.
Next slide, please.
So staff in the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases will administratively support
all Component 2 applicants and the activities funded therein.
Anything funded related to the prevention and control of emerging and re-emerging
infectious diseases in that component. This may include vector-borne diseases,
but it need not. Target applicants for this component.
will include what you see on this slide, applicants who can strengthen national
disease prevention, detection, and response capabilities for emerging
and reemerging public health threats, and again, including, but not limited to,
vector or disease threats. Professional organizations with clinical
public health and entomological membership are really preferred in terms
of their demonstrated capacity.
For our funding priorities, we'd like to prioritize that you
disseminate and support adoption of guidance, clinical guidelines,
best practices, and messages to prevent infections,
also to inform and support CDC in developing those guidance tools,
best practices, and messages, engaging frontline workers, which is a
a broad term across the full public health system to increase knowledge and
implementation of CDC best practices, and finally,
improve the public health system's ability to plan for and be ready to
respond to outbreaks and or public health emergencies. And with that,
I'd like to transition the webinar to our colleagues in DHQP to discuss
Component 3, Michael.
Thanks, Sue. I'm Michael Craig. I'm the Director of the AR Coordination
and the Strategy Unit, as well as the Deputy Division Director
for the Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion.
I'm going to talk about Component 3. This one covers AR and healthcare
associated infections. Building on DHQP's missions and the
capabilities we're seeking in applicants, we're going to talk about the broader
impact of this funding and what it's designed to achieve. So at its core,
the NOFO is intended to strengthen the nation's healthcare safety infrastructure
through innovation, collaboration,
and implementation of evidence-based practices that reduce infectious disease
threats while improving patient outcomes. To advance these goals,
DHQP has identified several funding priorities that represent critical areas
of need for our opportunity. Just also would note from the slide,
the targeted applicants, as you can see, that we are looking at.
And I would just note for a couple of these things,
for antimicrobial resistance threats, we're talking about both bacterial as
well as fungal disease threats. And we're interested in things that cross
and go into areas on the funding priorities below.
So that includes AR and the microbiome, healthcare associated infections,
and then oral infection prevention and control.
We have some DHQP SMEs that are going to speak to our year one program priorities.
And we're going to start that off with Dr. Cliff McDonald,
who will give an overview of AR and microbiome health.
And then Lauri Hicks will follow to talk about some other aspects of that related
to antibiotic stewardship. Cliff. So one of our areas of interest is the
dietary guidance
to support microbiome recovery after healthcare associated dysbiosis.
Why this project is needed is that the human microbiome plays a critical role in
maintaining health and protecting against infection, both fungal and bacterial.
Disruptions of the microbiome, known as dysbiosis,
can occur following common healthcare exposures such as antibiotics,
surgery, severe illness, and other medical treatments.
Diet is one of the strongest factors influencing microbiome composition and
function. Yet there is limited clinically focused
guidance on how patients can use nutrition to support microbiome recovery
after these healthcare-related disruptions.
Healthcare providers and patients need practical, evidence-based recommendations
that translate emerging microbiome science into actual dietary guidance
tailored to specific patient populations. The funded partner would develop
evidence-based dietary recommendations that promote microbiome recovery
following dysbiosis-inducing healthcare exposures,
synthesize existing scientific evidence, conduct systematic reviews where needed,
and apply transparent methods to evaluate evidence quality and recommendation
strength, produce clinically relevant guidance that
can be adapted for patients with food sensitivities, intolerances,
or other dietary considerations, and finally,
engage professional societies and clinical stakeholders to review
recommendations for feasibility
relevance and uptake. The capabilities in this applicant would
include strong expertise in nutrition science, microbiome research,
and evidence-based guideline development experience, conducting systematic reviews,
and applying evidence grading methodologies.
The ability to convene multidisciplinary experts and collaborate with professional
medical organizations
And finally, proven capacity to develop and
disseminate non-government clinical guidance products for healthcare
audiences. So that's one project area. The other is standards and best practices
for microbiome laboratory testing and diagnostics.
As microbiome-based therapeutics and interventions,
continue to advance, there is growing need for reliable ways
to measure, monitor, and interpret microbiome health.
Standardized approaches are needed to determine when microbiome-directed
interventions may be appropriate, evaluate treatment success,
and support broader infection prevention and public health efforts.
Currently, there's a lot of variability in sampling
methods, laboratory practices, test interpretation,
and validation approaches, which is limiting the consistency and
comparability across settings. What the funded partner would do would be
to convene scientific, clinical, laboratory, and regulatory experts
to develop consensus-based standards for microbiome sampling, quality control,
and clinical interpretation, identify best practices for analytic
validation, clinical validation, and implementation of microbiome-based
diagnostics, develop open access resources, standards,
and publications that can guide public health clinical laboratory practice and
ensure recommendations align with relevant regulatory accreditation and
quality frameworks such as FDA, CLIA, CAP, and CMS requirements.
Capabilities include demonstrated expertise,
in clinical laboratory science, microbiome measurement technologies,
and diagnostic development, strong experience leading expert
consensus processes, and developing standards of practice
guidelines, core practice guidelines, ability to engage diverse stakeholders,
including laboratorians, clinicians, researchers,
regulators and accreditation bodies, and finally experience publishing and
disseminating scientific and technical resources that support adoption across
healthcare and public health systems.
Hi, everyone. This is Laurie Hicks. I'm the Branch Chief for Medical Product
Safety. I'm going to build a little bit on what
Cliff shared. We have some interest in work related to
microbiome and cancer patients as well. I think most folks know that people with
cancer are often immunocompromised, and that makes them more susceptible to
infections.
So infection prevention is critical to protect cancer patients from healthcare
associated infections, which are often resistant to
antimicrobials. We also know that preserving the
effectiveness of antibiotics is essential to enable cancer care.
And as cancer care and therapy has
evolved, the immune system is increasingly being
leveraged to fight cancer with modern immunotherapies.
And we know that antibiotics can disrupt and may actually reduce the effectiveness
of these immunotherapies. We are seeking expertise and capabilities
related to implementation of effective infection prevention and control,
diagnostic stewardship, and antimicrobial stewardship to improve
the quality of care for cancer patients. Some example deliverables include
training and education related to infection prevention and control and or
appropriate antibiotic use as part of cancer care.
for healthcare professionals and patients and their families,
dissemination of messages to healthcare professionals and the public about the
connection between the health of the human microbiome and cancer treatment and
care. We're also interested in antimicrobial
stewardship capabilities that are independent of the cancer microbiome work,
that include expertise in developing scalable electronic health record
clinical pathways for improving antibiotic use in outpatient settings.
Sometimes this is referred to as clinical decision support.
We also are looking for subject matter expertise in academic detailing and
capability to develop training for clinicians to optimize antibiotic
prescribing for hospitalized patients.
Thanks, Lauri and Cliff. We're going to go on to the next priority
under healthcare associated infections. And I'm going to turn it over to Maggie
Dudek to talk about a project related to NHSN. Hi, everyone.
My name is Maggie Dudek, and I'm going to talk about a project for
expanding participation in the National Healthcare Safety Network's Digital
Quality Measures.
NHSN is transforming healthcare surveillance by using Fast Healthcare
Interoperability Resources, or FHIR, to identify and track serious adverse
events in hospitalized patients, accelerate improvements in patient safety,
and reduce harms and death.
FHIR application programming interfaces, APIs,
will be used to submit as a single bundle to detect new multiple digital quality
measures or DQMs. These include, but are not limited to,
hospital onset bacteremia and fungemia, or HOB,
adult community onset sepsis standardized mortality ratio,
and healthcare associated antibiotic treated C. difficile infection or HTCDI.
To date, NHSN has collaborated with 19 sites to
pilot, implement, and validate DQMs through our CoLab
program, and we are prepared to expand this
reporting to U.S. hospitals nationwide. The funded partner will be expected to
partner with healthcare systems, hospital executives and administrators,
and hospital
information technology personnel to complete successful education and
onboarding of hospitals to NHSN DQMs. We define hospital onboarding as
completing all required permissions for the hospital to connect their FHIR API
with NHSN Link.
Their data complies with the CDC NHSN DQM content package IG.
The hospital passes all NHSN verification and validation steps to ensure complete
and accurate data, and their submission of at least one
month of 1 DQM that confirms end-to-end connection.
In close collaboration with and under guidance of NHSN,
the funded partner would have the capabilities to support onboarding
activities, such as convene onboarding work groups
and cohorts of hospitals for peer-to-peer learning and support,
develop education and onboarding materials, train a DQM
implementation coordinator for each hospital,
and facilitate successful connection of the DQM FHIR API to NHSN for at least one
DQM. Our goals at NHSN are by the end of 2027,
we would have complete onboarding of up to 2,000 US hospitals
to within five years have all US hospitals participating in one or more
DQMs.
Thank you, Maggie. I'm going to turn it over now to Amy
Colwaite to talk about projects related to Project Firstline. Great. Thanks,
Michael. Hi, everyone. I'm Amy Colwaite, Chief of the Health System Strengthening
and Resilience Branch, which includes Project Firstline.
Project Firstline is CDC's national infection prevention and control training
and education collaborative for frontline health care workers.
The aim of Project First Line is to provide accessible, practical,
and culturally appropriate infection prevention and control or IPC resources
tailored to diverse learning preferences. We place particular emphasis on
environmental services workers and allied health professionals, for example,
certified nurse assistants or CNAs,
dental assistants, respiratory therapists, and EMS staff,
both while they are training to enter the profession and when they reach the
workplace. This work overlaps with our priority
populations portfolio, which is focused on strengthening
infection prevention and control in historically under-resourced settings.
This includes rural and critical access hospitals,
federally qualified health centers, Indian health services and tribal
facilities, including urban Indian clinics, and the
U.S. affiliated Pacific Islands. Project Firstline also aligns with our
health care systems resilience efforts, which focus on the science and
implementation of building health care systems resilient to infectious disease
threats and other disruptions to save quality care.
Through this mechanism, we look forward to working with partners
to deliver culturally appropriate, innovative IPC training targeting allied
health workers with consideration for historically under-resourced healthcare
settings. Identify IPC gaps across identified roles
in healthcare settings and translate findings into practical,
culturally tailored IPC resources.
This includes understanding and addressing needs related to cultural
practices such as traditional healers in healthcare settings.
Strengthen IPC through workforce readiness tools and rapid onboarding
resources for high turnover roles, as well as the integration of career
pipelines and other classroom to career strategies to fill critical allied health roles.
Producing engaging evidence-based multimedia education and support national
dissemination, whether through broadcast, webinars, or toolkits,
to scale IPC uptake. Monitor, evaluate, and apply continuous quality improvement
to measure training effectiveness by workforce role and refine resources,
linking training impact to IPC practice change and ultimately patient outcomes.
And finally, to build more resilient healthcare
systems that provide support for IPC processes to safely adapt during times of
crises, shocks, or other stressors. Approaches or features we would like to
see in proposals include both low burden, role-specific methods for training,
as well as more innovative ways to reach adult learners.
Methods for integrating IPC teaching in formal education settings,
including community colleges, mixed methods scoping and needs
assessments tailored to allied health perspectives and diverse care settings,
culturally co-created resources that respect local practices and community
norms, integration of onboarding, competency checklists,
and train-the-trainer models to address turnover and scale local teaching capacity.
Multimedia instructional design, such as interactive scenarios,
short animations, or spot the risk activities,
which could be suitable as a standalone or supplemental content,
and the ability for national dissemination via established platforms,
as well as clear plans for reaching frontline allied health audiences.
We'd like to see evaluation priorities around workforce disaggregated metrics to
track competency gains and sustain practice change across cadres. Again,
this includes EVS, CNAs, dental assistants, respiratory therapists,
to name just a few. Assessment of which training modalities
are most effective for different workforce cadres and settings.
Measures that link training to IPC practice change and where feasible to
patient safety outcomes, and continuous QI cycles using evaluation
findings to refine curricula and resources for greater impact.
Key capacities applicants should demonstrate would be proven experience
designing and delivering innovative, culturally appropriate,
competency-based training
that aligns with the core principles of adult learning and education,
including a track record of co-creating culturally appropriate resources for
underserved healthcare settings. Establish networks with healthcare
settings and frontline healthcare cadres for pilot and scale-up activities,
or establish networks between healthcare settings and formal education settings.
Skills and mixed methods scoping needs assessments that capture allied health
perspectives as it relates to infection control.
Experience in adult learning and educational best practice and multimedia
production capability for short videos, interactive cases,
and other novel methods tailored to our targeted healthcare cadres.
Experience supporting broadcast platforms and webinars for national dissemination.
Experience in developing and disseminating practical workforce
retention and onboarding tools for allied health. For example, quick start guides,
competency checklists, train the trainer models,
or workforce development partnerships with community colleges for on-the-job
training. And finally, robust monitoring, evaluation,
and QI methods with workforce disaggregated metrics and clear plans to
share lessons learned.
Thanks, thanks, Amy. All right, and for the last one in the healthcare
associated infection section related to state and local leadership engagement,
I'm going to turn it over to Wendy Vance.
Great. Thank you, Michael. Hi, everyone. I'm Wendy Vance,
and I'm a public health analyst in the Division of Health Care Quality Promotion
and one of the technical monitors for this funding opportunity. Today,
I'm going to talk about the state and local leadership engagement component.
We recognize that state, territorial, and local public health leaders play a
critical role in advancing
healthcare safety and quality, including HAIs, antimicrobial resistance,
sepsis, healthcare resilience, and outbreak preparedness efforts.
Through this NOFO, DHQP is interested in supporting national
partners that have established relationships with state, territorial,
and local public health leadership.
and can serve as trusted conveners between CDC and the field.
We are looking for applicants that can facilitate meaningful leadership
engagement opportunities between CDC, DHQP leadership and senior leadership of
national partnership organizations that represent and support state
territorial, and local public health agencies.
These engagement activities should help identify emerging issues,
share priorities, implementation challenges,
and opportunities for strategic alignment across jurisdictions.
We are particularly interested in activities that strengthen collaboration,
support information sharing,
and create mechanisms for elevating state and local perspectives to inform DHQP
priorities and programmatic activities. Applicants should demonstrate how they
will sustain momentum between leadership convenings through ongoing engagement,
strategic coordination, follow up on agreed upon actions,
elevation of emerging issues, and continuous identification of
opportunities to advance shared priorities related to healthcare safety
and quality, including HAI, antimicrobial resistance, sepsis,
healthcare resilience, outbreak preparedness,
and public health systems strengthening.
The technical expertise needed, expertise in HAI,
antimicrobial resistance, infection prevention and control, sepsis,
healthcare resilience, and outbreak preparedness and response.
We also need experience working with state, territorial,
and local public health agencies and understanding the challenges.
and opportunities that are faced here. Expertise in public health infrastructure,
workforce development, data modernization, healthcare quality improvement,
and emergency preparedness is highly valuable as well.
Experience translating technical and scientific information into actionable
strategies for public health leadership audiences.
The collaboration would be DHQP is interested in partnership that fosters
collaboration among federal, state, territorial,
and local public health partners. Successful applicants should demonstrate
the ability to convene leadership, facilitate strategic discussions,
identify shared priorities,
and promote coordinated approaches to addressing public health
challenges. Applicants should describe how they will
support information exchange, identify opportunities for synergy,
and strengthen alignment between DHQP priorities and public health partner
needs. Collaboration efforts should support
coordination around HAI
antimicrobial-resistant sepsis, healthcare resilience,
outbreak preparedness, public health infrastructure,
and emerging public health threats. The capability is needed to accomplish
the work over the next five years. The ability to convene and engage public
health leaders on a national scale.
The ability to facilitate leadership forums, strategic planning discussions,
policy discussions, communities of practice,
and other engagement opportunities. The capacity to identify and elevate
emerging issues, system level changes, and opportunities for improvement.
The ability to disseminate CDC guidance, tools,
and resources broadly and effectively.
Expertise supporting HAI and AR prevention activities, sepsis initiatives,
preparedness, response coordination, healthcare resilience,
and public health system strengthening. And lastly,
the ability to collect and synthesize information from the field and provide
actionable recommendations
that inform future public health priorities and activities. Thank you.
Thanks, Wendy. And then for the last section under
funding priorities, we're going to cover oral infection
prevention and control. And I'm going to turn that over to
Liz Wilkins first.
So we'd like to work with a partner on CDC's infection prevention and control
activities and settings providing dental services.
This includes dental services provided in outpatient clinics, acute care hospitals,
long-term care facilities, and other community-based settings and
mobile or portable settings. Our funding priorities would be for
activities focused in four key areas. One, updating
the existing CDC dental infection control guidance for priority topics and
facilitating dissemination and adoption within the dental community. Two,
updating and or developing new infection control training materials and resources
for dental health care personnel. Three, providing technical expertise on
specialized dental topics such as dental instruments, equipment,
oral surgical procedures.
to support other CDC response and prevention focused activities,
and facilitating partnership and capacity building for infection prevention and
control among dental health care personnel,
dental professional associations, public health agencies,
regulatory agencies, and other relevant organizations.
Thanks Liz. And then
last but not least, I'm going to turn it actually back to
Lauri Hicks to talk about some other work related to oral health.
Great. Thank you, Michael.
I'm going to speak just briefly. We have known for a long time that over
10% of all antibiotics used in humans are prescribed by dentists and infrastructure
to improve antibiotic use in dentistry is quite limited.
We are seeking capabilities and expertise at the intersection of dentistry and
antibiotic stewardship. Example deliverables may include dental
antibiotic prescribing guidelines, dental quality measure development and
performance improvement,
for management of common conditions that lead to antibiotic use in dentistry,
and health informatics and electronic health record-based approaches for
antibiotic use tracking and quality measurement in dental settings.
Another area of public health importance is the safety of human tissue transplantation.
Use of human bone material is increasing rapidly in dentistry,
and there have been serious infectious outbreaks like tuberculosis linked to
human tissue use. We are looking for capabilities at the
intersection of human tissue use, quality improvement, and dentistry.
And one example of a potential deliverable
includes training which offers continuing education for dental
professionals to increase understanding of risks for infections with human tissue
and the importance of informed consent for patients. Thank you, Lauri.
And that concludes the overview for Component 3.
Next, we'll turn it over to Liz McClune for an
overview of the targeted applicants and funding priorities for Component 4.
Thanks, Michael. And I want to focus on Component 4 for a
second because it's a bit unique amongst the components.
So Component 4 exists to support outbreaks and emergency responses.
As you can imagine, that is a could touch many of our
different programs, including the broader infectious disease
portfolio that you heard about in Component 2,
the more targeted HAI AR one that you've heard about in Component 3 and others.
And I do want to note that unlike some of the other components,
applicants to Component 4 may be placed on an approved but unfunded status
initially for this component, depending on the needs of public health
for emergency responses, which would then be leveraged on the
specific public health needs
that either currently arise or may arise in the near future. I do want to note,
too, that for applicants interested in
supporting emergency responses now or in the future, please,
we are strongly encouraged to apply to Component 4, of course,
in addition to Component 1, which is required to be considered for
those emergency response scaling
activities. As far as the targeted applicants,
you'll see that they map very clearly to what you saw in the broader portfolio of
Component 2, which is infectious disease. And the focus is the ability to enhance
outbreaks and public health emergencies. So the ability to increase or accelerate
programming quickly is
really important here. In the next section, next slide,
we'll take a closer look at how the program strategies align with the
components we've discussed and the activities that applicants may propose
under each area. And again, they're meant to be very broad.
We want to get a broad swath of applications and your ideas as well.
So next slide, please.
So again, we've discussed the program components
and we are going to focus on the strategies and activities that are meant
to support implementations. The strategies provide a framework for
how recipients will achieve the goals of each component and will translate the
objectives into action.
As you develop your application, it's really important to align your
proposed activities with the strategies associated with the component or
components you're applying for. So as you can see,
and as you'll see throughout the narrative of the NOFO,
not every strategy applies to every component. So please
focus only on the strategies linked to your selected component. Of course,
can't emphasize this enough, knowing that Component 1, Strategy 1,
is required. The next slide, we can go through how they align.
So I'm going to break them down now. So before I hand it off to my colleagues.
So Component 1,
Strategy 1 is implement and monitor. So that is the foundational strategy and
component. Invest in and maintain the people who are
critical and necessary to implement and fiscally manage the activities.
So regardless of what the specific activities are,
this is your foundational management budget,
program management work that you need to prevent the spread of infectious disease.
Next slide, please.
And then number Strategy 2, which you can find in
Component 2 and 3,
is disseminate and adopt. And as noted by Dr. Visser earlier,
we're supporting CDC in disseminating and adopting guidance, guidelines,
best practices, and messaging related to either, again,
the broader disease prevention and control for emerging and re-emerging
pathogens, which is Component 2,
or the more specific AMR HAI infections, which is Component 3.
So I think Strategy 3 is being handled by my fabulous colleague, Trisia.
So I will hand it off to her.
Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Tristia Shannon.
I am the Deputy Program Management Official in ARX,
the Antimicrobial Resistance Strategy and Coordination Unit.
I'll be handling the next couple of slides to continue to review the
strategies. So Liz just went over Strategy 2,
so I will transition right into Strategy 3.
Strategy 3 is inform and adopt. Strategy 3 focuses on helping programs
understand how resources can be refined and adapted to meet the needs of health
care and public health communities they're intended to support.
Through this strategy, potential applicants will support CDC by
gathering input from SMEs, professional communities,
healthcare providers, clinicians, and other key stakeholders.
This feedback will help CDC better understand needs, challenges,
and perspectives of different patient populations, clinical specialties,
and industry sectors. The goal is to use those insights to
inform, develop, refine, and adapt guidance tools and practices
and communication resources
so they can be more effectively implemented in real world settings.
Next slide, please.
The next strategy I will talk about is under Components 2 and 3 is
strategy 4. Strategy 4 is educate and train.
This strategy recognizes that guidance and best practices are most effective
when the workforce has knowledge, skills, and resources needed to implement them.
Through this strategy, potential applicants will engage
frontline health care and public health professionals
to increase awareness, understanding, and adoption of CDC recommended practices.
This strategy may include developing educational resources,
delivering training programs, supporting professional development
opportunities, and leveraging existing networks to reach
key audiences. Our goal is to strengthen the workforce
capacity and ensure that evidence-based practices are effectively implemented
across healthcare and public health settings. Next slide, please.
The next strategy under Components 2 and 3 is strategy 5,
which is ready and prepare. The goal of this strategy is to
strengthen the public health system's ability to anticipate, prepare for,
and respond to infectious disease threats. Through this strategy,
recipients may support activities that improve planning, preparedness,
coordination, and response readiness across healthcare
and public health systems.
Organizations should consider their expertise, partnerships,
and networks can support preparedness efforts and improve the ability of health
care and public health systems to respond effectively when challenges arise.
Ultimately, strategy 5 is about ensuring that systems
are not only prepared to respond to threats, but are positioned to do so
quickly, effectively, in a coordinated manner.
The next strategy is strategy 6. This is a unique strategy because it's
only unique to Component 3. It is build and strengthen.
Strategy 6 focuses on improving the systems and environments where care is
delivered. Through this strategy, potential applicants will support efforts
to strengthen healthcare resiliency
by identifying and addressing system level factors that influence consistent
delivery of safe care. This may include activities that help
health care organizations improve processes,
strengthen infection prevention practices, or address barriers that contribute to
healthcare-associated infections or antimicrobial resistance.
The goal is to create stronger, more resilient healthcare systems that
can better prevent infections, improve patient safety,
and reduce the impact of antimicrobial pathogens.
And the last strategy that we will discuss is strategy 7 under Component 4.
Strategy 7 is only associated with Component 4 and focuses on outbreak
and emergency response.
It's designed to support rapid action when public health emergency occurs.
Through this strategy, potential applicants may help enhance the
public health system's response to outbreaks and emerging threats by
expanding or accelerating existing activities, programs, or services.
This could include increasing
capacity, expanding public health infrastructure,
scaling up communication and outreach efforts,
and or providing additional support needed to address an urgent public health
response. Our goal is to ensure that our partners
have flexibility and capacity to respond quickly and effectively when new threats
emerge.
As a reminder, to follow on what Liz said, Component 4 applications may be approved,
but initially unfunded. And you must apply for Component 4 to be
considered for future awards if determined that response support is
needed. And now I will turn it over to my
colleague, Raven Bradley, to discuss application tips and reminders.
Thank you.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Raven Bradley. I'm a public health analyst in the
Antimicrobial Resistance Coordination and Strategy Unit.
I want to go over a couple of important application requirements and reminders
from our presentation today. All applicants must apply for
Component 1, which is the required infrastructure component,
along with at least one additional component.
Applicants must also propose activities that support at least one strategy
associated with each component included in their application.
Proposed activities should clearly align with the strategy
or strategies identified under that component.
It is also important to note that Component 2 and Component 3 are separate
scopes of work. Applicants may choose to apply for either
component individually or for both components, depending on their expertise,
capacity, and proposed activities.
If applying for multiple components, applicants should submit a separate work
plan and budget for each component. This helps ensure that proposed
activities, deliverables, and resources are clearly aligned with
the appropriate component requirements. Organizations must apply
for Component 4 to be considered for future activation during an outbreak or
public health emergency response. Finally, all applicants must maintain an active
Sam.gov registration. We strongly encourage organizations to
verify their registration
status early to avoid delays or submission issues. Next slide, please.
Here are some key dates to remember. Applications are due July 1st, 2026.
CDC anticipates making awards by August 31st, 2026,
with a projected start date of September 30th, 2026.
We encourage applicants to begin preparing early
and ensure that all required registrations, including sam.gov
and grants.gov, are active and current well before the
application deadline.
Next slide, please.
If you have programmatic questions about the NOFO,
please contact the program team using the email address listed on this slide.
Additionally, if you would like to have access to the
recording of this webinar, please send your email address to the
program mailbox listed on this slide.
idpartnerships@cdc.gov. For grants management or budget related
questions, please contact the grants management
specialist listed here.
Next slide, please.
For system support, applicants should use grants.gov
and sam.gov support resources when needed and to verify registrations
early to avoid systems submission delays. The help desk contact information for
both systems can be found on this slide.
Next slide, please.
We also included several websites that may be useful as you prepare your
application. These resources provide information on
CDC grants, federal requirements, application guidance,
and applicable regulations. We encourage applicants to review
these resources
and use them as references throughout the application process. Next slide, please.
We have now come to the end of the webinar.
Thank you for your attention and interest in partnering with CDC to strengthen
prevention, detection, and response to emerging and re-emerging
infectious disease threats. I will now transition to my colleagues,
Trisia and Liz, and open the floor for questions.
Thank you.
So, Trisia, I will field the first question first and
then maybe go to you, if that makes sense?
Sounds good. We can go back and forth. Okay.
So I see a lot of questions in the chat
about eligible organizations. Again, want to refer you to the NOFO.
Sometimes the slides are shortened in the full list because of time and space,
but the full eligible recipients are on page 8 of the NOFO.
You'll see it's a long list.
So please feel free to look at that. And if you are an eligible organization,
you are allowed to and encouraged to apply to any and all the components that
you wish. Again, just want to reiterate, though,
if you are also funded through any other mechanism,
we want to make sure that the work
itself doesn't duplicate. So that is just something to
keep in mind as you apply for this opportunity to make sure it's not the
same as something you're already being funded for through another opportunity.
Trisia?
So Liz, I think I will hit the question about the
funding amounts. I'm sorry, I want to go to the specific question.
So the funding is listed in the estimated amounts, and they are
Sorry, Trisia, you are breaking up my dear.
Your connection isn't super fantastic, but I think I caught what you were saying.
And these are just estimated amounts. So you should not take these as ceilings
or floors. For the first Component 1, we did want to make sure that there was a
bare minimum that is estimated
every year of the cooperative agreement. So that one you can consider more of a
floor, but there is no, that's estimated and you don't have to
use those, any of those amounts as specific confines
for your proposal.
Back over to you, Liz.
Sure, thank you, Sue. So I think another question we're getting
is for Component 4. So noting that, of course, you may be approved,
but unfunded, and we don't know the exact, you know,
emergency response or outbreak that you'll be dealing with. In general,
and our grants management folks, if I misspoke,
please come off mute and correct me. But
your budget should reflect the activities and strategies that you propose that you
would think to do the work. So, and obviously,
there's Component 1 and that budget and then the Component 4 piece as well.
So there are different ways you could go about it.
But that would be what I would request so that we have an idea,
you need to have a budget.
I also am seeing that there is confusion. I think there was accidentally put in the
chat about the intent of the NOFO and that is being misconstrued as the
eligibility list. The eligibility list is on page 8 of the
NOFO. Please refer to that as opposed to the
broader intent language, which is not an eligibility list.
So thank you guys.
I don't know who else is is Trisia.
Yes, I can try. Can you guys hear me now? I came off her camera.
We can.
Yes.
Okay, so I will go to the question about
Component 1. There were questions about the funding
amount. I think that is similar to the previous
question that we asked. Those are not intended to be,
the 20K is not anticipated to be the ceiling. It is an estimated amount.
But just noting that when you're applying for Component 1,
it's an infrastructure component.
And you must apply for another component with that.
So you must apply for Component 1 and or Component 2,
3 and 4. Or 4.
Liz, I'll hand it back over to you.
Absolutely, and there's many a question.
So let me see if I can pick as many.
There's a question. Yeah, go ahead.
There’s a question that I’ve noticed that's been repeated a couple of times
about a discrepancy in the project
narrative page limit. One page is saying the limit is 20,
one page is saying 15. So they just want you to clarify that.
Is it 20 or 15?
I may turn that over to Raven and Trisia.
Hey everyone, I hope you guys can hear me. The page limit will be 20.
And that question will also be answered in the FAQ if you need something to go
back to.
Yes, and as far as, again, you should submit a budget or work
and work plan for component 4. You may be unapproved but unfunded,
but you may not. Again, the point of Component 4 is to have
a roster of eligible applicants that can be utilized in an emergency response.
We certainly have
three going on now in addition to many outbreaks,
and we may have some in the future. So I certainly would encourage you to
have a work plan and a budget that can be leveraged if needed now or in the future.
Over to you, Trisia.
Andrew, is there another reoccurring question?
Let's see. That was the most one that I saw.
There was one that stood out about, would multiple applications from a single
state be considered? So for example, if a state level health department and a
local health department both apply, or is there a preference for a single
application per state?
So based off of the requirements in the NOFO,
organizations can only apply under one UEI. If that is not applicable,
then you can apply.
I'll turn it over to Liz or...
Sure. And I know we're running short on time.
So I do want to note that, yes, the questions in the chat will be
included in the FAQ. There will be, this is being recorded.
And so that will be posted as well for you or your colleagues to refer to as you
develop your applications.
Trisia, others from you?
We have someone, well I thought we had someone whose hand
was up. Give me one sec. Okay, so there was a question about extending
the application deadline and there seems to be a lot of comments. Unfortunately,
this is beyond our control and there will not be an extension for the deadline.
So all applications are due
July 1st, 2026 at 11:59 P.M.
Trisia, there's another question about the slides
being shared in the transcripts as well. So just to confirm that the transcripts
will be shared as well as the slides.
Liz, I'll turn it over to you.
Sure, I believe the slides can be shared. I don't think we will have a transcript
that is just transcribable in the time we need to get it out and up to you guys
but because you'll have the actual recording,
you should have access to the words in addition to the slides themselves.
And I do see a question related to the resumes of whether you need to do a
resume for anyone and everyone. It's for the basic piece of Component 1,
which is your foundational piece. And there is a note in the NOFO that if
you haven't hired that person yet, you can put a to be determined. So if,
yeah, you know, if there's someone in your organization
that obviously you would hire, assuming there was funding,
that is responsive as well, according to the NOFO.
I think I see a hand up, so maybe Jeffrey, we can go to you and then we may have
time depending on the answer for one more question during the time of the webinar.
Yes, thank you very much. Jeff Skinner from NACCHO.
I just want to have a confirming question. Regarding attachments,
we are to take all of our attachments and combine them into one PDF and submit it
titled other attachments. So that will be table of contents,
resumes, the entire list, org chart,
all of that information combined into one, because my experience,
I'm accustomed to uploading the attachments individually under
other attachments.
You're correct. This will be in the FAQ also,
but all the attachments should be added into one single other attachments form,
and that will include what I put in chat, table of contents,
your indirect cost agreement, resumes and job descriptions,
organizational chart, your implementing partner list,
administrative requirement capability letter, data management plan, report of
overlap if applicable, hopefully none, and then your bona fide agent
documentation if applicable. And then you can do an other required
forms. So your SF424, 424A, SF triple L, those are separate,
but all the rest of that, and I put that in the chat,
the list of attachments.
all go into one other attachments form. So thanks for the question.
Okay, thank you for the confirming.
Thank you for the answer. Of course.
And I'm going to answer one question I'm seeing in the chat before we,
I think we have time for one more. So if you're, I think Colin, you're my #2.
So put your question in the chat. I want to make sure you get your question
answered through the FAQ process. But for the administrative capability
letter, if you don't have a president or CEO,
because that is not the structure or title of your organization,
whoever is at a high enough level of leadership in your organization that can
attest to the existing capacity and capability for rapid procurement, hiring,
and contracting. So whoever that is within your
organization, whatever title that is, that would be the appropriate person
if there isn't a president or CEO in your specific organization.
And I see, hold on, I'm trying to get the names right,
but if you are in the number one hand raise,
you're going to be our final question. Eli or Ellie, I'm sorry.
I can't hear you if you're talking, so we're gonna go with Colin.
Liz, we needed to unmute Eli.
Oh, that's on me. That sorry, that's on me. Go ahead.
Yeah, hey, hi. So understanding the difference between
eligible and intended, I know that that's an outer list.
That's a very standard list of eligible applicants,
but to save a lot of us from wasting our time,
could you please expand on who you really intend here,
just because that business around national organizations that work with
state and local would be very helpful before a lot of us spin our wheels.
That's totally fair. I'm going to be frank.
I think that that is, I would disregard the intent.
If the application addresses the strategies and activities,
then that is what we're looking for.
Thank you very much.
Okay, we are over time, so I'm going to turn it over to Trisia to
wrap up, or Tiffany or others.
I think Tiffany may have dropped off. I just wanted to come on camera and say
thank you guys for your attention this afternoon and thank you for your patience.
I have received the questions. I am, unfortunately,
I cannot respond individually, but we are working to make sure that we
include each question in the FAQs. And we are also working for the FAQs and
the webinar to be posted.
Once that information has been posted, you guys will receive a note,
as long as you have subscribed to the NOFO and on grants.gov,
you should receive a modification comment that tells you where both documents,
where both the webinar and the FAQs has been posted.
Thank you again for your time. We really appreciate it and we look
forward to reviewing your applications.