Social, Behavioral, and Economic (SBE) Research on COVID-19 in Vulnerable and Health Disparity Population Consortium Initiative

The NIH Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research on COVID-19 Consortium Coordinating Center (SBECCC) will foster innovation, collaboration, and synergies across researchers funded through the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Research on COVID-19 Consortium (U01) program (see PAR-21-213) and other relevant NIH-funded studies. The SBECCC will support networking activities intended to advance research and collaboration in the field, the development and use of harmonized COVID-19 data constructs for primary and secondary data to support comparability and replicability, efficient and enhanced sharing/discoverability of data, and dissemination of findings to the research community and the public.

The NIH Social, Behavioral, and Economic Health Impacts of COVID-19 in Vulnerable and Health Disparity Populations initiative (hereafter, SBE) was formed to support the following objectives:

Improve prediction of the impact of various COVID-19 mitigation efforts on transmission reduction and on social and economic outcomes, by leveraging and augmenting existing surveys, cohort studies, and research networks;
Assess the downstream health and healthcare access effects of the economic downturn through comprehensive analysis of a wide range of available data sources;
Develop digital and community interventions to ameliorate health effects of COVID-19 mitigation strategies in vulnerable populations.

For more information on the SBE initiative as well as guidance on harmonizing and sharing data to support study comparisons, please visit the SBE page on the NIH COVID-19 website.

SBE and other NIH COVID-19 funding opportunities have supported a significant number of research studies on these topics, including the generation of longitudinal data to support future COVID-19 SBE science. Together, these studies create unique opportunities for new research collaborations. The SBECCC will support networking among funded investigators and the broader research community conducting SBE-relevant research or possessing relevant data. The SBECCC will support activities around data harmonization, data sharing, and development of comparable data constructs to support comparability/replication; and it will disseminate results of SBE supported research to the public and policy makers.

Applicants to the “Social, Behavioral and Economic Research on COVID-19 Consortium Coordinating Center (U24 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)” RFA can refer to the link below for information on existing NIH awards relevant to the SBE initiative to develop plans/activities to achieve the collaboration, data, and science development goals of the SBECCC. Note that some SBE-relevant awards on this list are supplements adding COVID-19 relevant research/data to existing projects that were not focused specifically on COVID-19 research, so details on the COVID-19 component may be limited.

To access a list of existing NIH awards relevant to the SBE initiative, please click this NIH RePORTER link. NIH RePORTER is an electronic tool that allows users to search a database of NIH-funded research projects and access publications and patents resulting from NIH funding.

Please direct any questions to:
John W.R. Phillips, Ph.D.
National Institute on Aging
Phone: 301-496-3136
Email John Phillips, Ph.D.