The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), one of the components of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is announcing the “Barriers and Solutions to Building Community Partnership in Deploying Remote Assessments” Challenge. The Challenge goal is to inspire the creation of actionable steps for creating and sustaining bidirectional researcher-community partnerships that will reduce barriers and mistrust between academic, clinical, and research-conducting institutions and communities to increase recruitment and retention of participants in remote, including virtual, clinical research studies. NIDA expects that the contest will allow participants to identify areas of opportunity to build community trust and empower community voices, address systemic and personal factors that discourage adoption of remote research platforms, and develop remote platforms that are ethical, safe, and meaningful to communities. NIDA seeks broad input from individuals and groups both within and outside the addiction science field, with the hope and expectation that successful examples of strong researcher-community partnerships will provide the NIDA research community with insights and tools to strengthen its use of remote assessments and serve its mission to advance science on drug use and addiction and to apply that knowledge to improve individual and public health.
Applications are due January 15, 2025.