Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE)

Based on research topic, choose the appropriate contact from the NOSI or the related announcement.

This opportunity is a Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) for research to address the HIV epidemic using innovation to tailor strategies for the barriers and strengths in communities disproportionately impacted by HIV. Projects should address the goals of the Ending the HIV Epidemic in the U.S. (EHE) Initiative.

The initiative focuses on 4 strategies.

• Diagnose all people with HIV as early as possible
• Treat people with HIV rapidly and effectively to reach sustained viral suppression
• Prevent new HIV transmissions by using proven interventions, including pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and syringe services programs
• Respond quickly to potential HIV outbreaks to get needed prevention and treatment services to people who need them

Areas of interest include:

• Developing and testing strategies to expand engagement and re-engagement in HIV prevention, testing, treatment, care, and response services with a focus on populations that are disproportionately impacted by HIV and/or that are largely unreached by current programs, including but not limited to populations experiencing unstable housing or homelessness, or people who are currently or formerly incarcerated
• Utilizing a syndemics approach to develop and test holistic, multicomponent interventions to sustainably address structural and other social barriers to care and retention (such as mental health conditions, substance use, medication adherence, management of chronic health conditions and comorbidities, housing instability, food insecurity, racism, poverty, transportation, and stigma)
• Designing and testing integrated disease care models to address barriers to HIV prevention or treatment outcomes posed by chronic health comorbidities, including those associated with HIV and aging, and coinfections, including detection, prevention, and treatment of sexually transmitted infections (STIs)
• Assessing innovative community-based prevention and treatment strategies (such as peer community outreach, navigation for transitional housing programs, mobile health, and HIV self-testing)
• Developing and/or evaluating programs to reduce stigma and bias related to HIV, sexual orientation, patterns of alcohol use, drug use status, mental health conditions, and/or race and ethnicity
• Leveraging information and communication technologies to improve engagement and retention in HIV prevention, treatment, and services, including integrated services addressing related health conditions
• Developing and testing rapid implementation strategies to improve HIV testing, care, and prevention services among people in sexual and needle-sharing networks affected by rapid HIV transmission (clusters and outbreaks)
• Using nurse-driven approaches to enhance the implementation of community and population-based prevention approaches
• Developing and testing interventions to address structural-level factors, including stigma, discrimination, social norms, and policies/laws that impact HIV outcomes
• Developing effective dissemination approaches for communicating and integrating implementation knowledge to specific audiences, with the goal of scaling-up, replicating, and/or sustaining evidence-based strategies to improve HIV prevention, treatment, and response
• Understanding and addressing provider, clinic, and systems-level factors that may impact the delivery of HIV prevention and treatment, including ART initiation and adherence, PrEP delivery, patient retention, and HIV nonoccupational post exposure prophylaxis (nPEP) delivery
• Implementation strategies to adopt and integrate evidence-based health interventions to address stigma and bias related to HIV and HIV-related gender-based violence, focusing on interpersonal relationships across diverse contexts, including intimate partner and familial relationships as well as clinician-patient interactions, particularly experienced by older adults and individuals from minoritized populations such as sexual and gender minorities
• Research to examine the potential impact of certain interventions such as HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) on health and on effectiveness of current measures to prevent the transmission of HIV through blood products and other therapeutic products of human origin

Research must focus on one of the geographically defined EHE priority areas: 48 counties, Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico, where the majority of the new HIV diagnoses are reported, as well as in 7 states with a disproportionate occurrence of new HIV diagnoses in rural areas.

Eligible applicants include:

• Higher education institutions
  • Public/state controlled institutions
  • Private institutions
• Nonprofit organizations
  • With 501(c)(3) status
  • Without 501(c)(3) status
  • Native American tribal organizations
  • Faith-based or community-based organizations
  • Regional organizations
• Governments
  • State
  • County
  • City or township
  • Special districts
  • Federally recognized Indian/Native American tribal governments
  • Indian/Native American tribal governments (other than federally recognized)
  • Eligible agencies of the federal government
  • U.S. territory or possession
• Other
  • Independent school districts
  • Public housing authorities
  • Indian housing authorities
  • Small businesses
  • For-profit organizations

Award amounts are based on the related NIH announcement.

This opportunity is attached to related NIH announcements which are listed in a table on the NOSI.

Applicants should submit proposals to the related announcement and indicate that it is a response to the NOSI.

Investigators planning to submit an application are strongly encouraged to contact and discuss their proposed research with program staff well in advance of the anticipated submission date to better determine appropriateness and interest.

This NOSI expires on January 10, 2026.