New Grant Program Targets Chronic Diseases in Developing World

10 September 2008

($1.5 million annually will help fight cancer, heart disease, diabetes)

By Erika Gebel
Special Correspondent

Washington – A new research grant program that will award $1.5 million annually to fight chronic diseases in developing nations has been launched by the Fogarty International Center of the United States’ National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Developing countries, historically fertile breeding grounds for infectious diseases like malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis, increasingly are afflicted by noncontagious chronic ailments such as cancer, diabetes and heart disease. (See Disease and Disability.)

"The Fogarty International Center will encourage programs that prepare researchers and medical workers to address these new challenges, provide training across disciplines and bridge gaps among the biological, social and behavioral sciences," the center’s director, Dr. Roger I. Glass, said in a press releases.

Founded in 1968, the Fogarty International Center promotes health facility development, research and training by funding some 5,000 scientists with its $64 million annual budget. The new chronic disease initiative is part of a larger strategic plan, called Pathways to Global Health Research, that will direct the center’s international activities until 2012.

“The strategic plan envisions investigators from any country applying for grants under the eight research and 14 training programs in Fogarty's portfolio,” Ira Allen, public affairs specialist at Fogarty, told America.gov. “The Fogarty International Center has had collaborations with scientific institutions in more than 100 countries but instead of tailoring the programs to countries or regions, the funding targets diseases, training and research capacity building in low- and middle-income countries regardless of region.”

According to Allen, international researchers find out about Fogarty’s funding opportunities in a variety of ways. Electronic newsletters from the NIH –The NIH Guide – and the Fogarty International Center – Global Health Matters – contain grant information, and several listservs target and deliver e-mails about Fogarty’s programs to communities of interest. In addition, Fogarty staff members spread the word by attending and speaking at international conferences. Information also circulates by word of mouth through current and former grant recipients.

Worldwide Focus on Chronic Diseases

The new global focus on chronic diseases comes in the wake of predictions about the changing face of mortality in low- and middle-income countries. Roughly 60 percent of all deaths are attributable to chronic diseases, and 80 percent of them occur in developing countries, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

In a 2008 report, WHO predicted that by 2030 the four leading causes of death worldwide will be ischemic heart disease, stroke, chronic obstructive pulmonary (lung) disease and lower-respiratory infections like pneumonia. The shift from the predominance of deaths via infectious disease agents to deaths from chronic diseases is thought to be in part the result of an aging world population; by the year 2030, it is predicted that one in eight people will be over the age of 65. (See “Global Causes of Death Move from Infectious to Chronic Diseases.”)

Up to seven awards and two planning grants are being made available under the Millennium Promise Awards: Non-communicable Chronic Diseases Research Training Program, the element of Fogarty’s overall strategic plan that targets chronic diseases.

In addition to the chronic disease initiative, Fogarty’s strategic plan remains committed to the infectious disease research and training for which it has a long history. The plan has five goals overall:  addressing chronic diseases in low- and middle- income countries, bridging the “know-do” gap, increasing research training, fostering sustainable research practices and building beneficial alliances.

The “know-do” gap refers to the fact that even though science has proven the benefits of a particular health strategy, putting that knowledge into the practice of saving lives often remains an unmet challenge.  To this end, the Fogarty strategic plan includes a new emphasis on “implementation research.” This method includes finding better ways to communicate science to the public and to medical workers.

International Collaboration

As one example of collaboration efforts, the Fogarty International Center has joined the Oxford Health Alliance’s Grand Challenges Global Partnership, which aims to reduce the number of deaths from noncommunicable diseases in developing nations through prevention, diagnosis and training.

The Oxford Health Alliance is a joint effort by Oxford University and Novo Nordisk, which, according to its Web site, “enables experts and activists from different backgrounds to collaborate in order to raise awareness and change behaviours, policies and perspectives at every level of society.”

Another way in which the Fogarty International Center fosters international relationships is through its Fogarty International Research Collaboration Award (FIRCA), a $50,000 grant to help connect NIH researchers with collaborators in developing countries.

Over this program’s 10-year history, 460 grants have been awarded, leading to over 1,500 research articles in peer-reviewed journals. These collaborations do not necessarily end when the money runs out; over 30 percent of the FIRCA-funded researchers continue to collaborate with their international partners after the FIRCA grant ends.

More information about the Fogarty International Center and the FIRCA grants is available on the center’s Web site.