This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites applications for implementation of investigator-initiated multi-site clinical trials (all phases or stages) of interventions focused on specific aging-related issues to reducing transmission, risk, morbidity, mortality, severity, or complications of Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). Applications on the following priority topics are invited:
- Efficacy and safety of interventions that target aging-related biological mechanisms that may influence risk or severity of COVID-19 infection among at-risk older adults
- Efficacy and safety of preventive and treatment interventions in older patients with differing comorbid conditions that make them especially vulnerable to adverse outcomes of COVID-19 infection
- Effectiveness of health and/or custodial care practices to reduce transmission risk or improve outcomes of COVID-19 infection in nursing homes or other residential settings serving at-risk older persons, including the development and testing of infection control training procedures for healthcare workers
- Rapid pragmatic trials in (at least two) health systems, nursing homes, or adult living facilities, ensuring replication across large pragmatic trial sites and leveraging electronic health records to promote quality improvement in physician, hospital, palliative care, and hospice practices to improve outcomes for older patients with COVID-19, especially those with cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease or Alzheimer's disease-related dementias (AD/ADRD), or underlying comorbidities
- Trials in at-risk older adults age 65 and older for whom electronic medical records are available and long-term outcomes can be tracked, and in institutions serving those populations
- Trials in older adults with AD/ADRD, older adults from populations with NIH-defined health disparities, and/or other vulnerable populations (e.g. incarcerated, homeless, living in institutions)