Supplemental Grants for Research Goes Red Awardees

• Proposals must be received no later than 3 p.m. Central Time on the deadline date. Early submission is encouraged.
  
  
• Before beginning an application, review the eligibility and requirements that apply to all American Heart Association (AHA) research awards at AHA Application Resources page.
  
  
• All proposals must be submitted electronically via ProposalCentral. The system will open eight weeks prior to the application deadline to complete your proposal and upload documents. You can begin to create your documents now; please refer to the AHA Application Instructions (PDF). All submissions require a signature from a designated institutional representative.
  
  
• Applicants must be AHA Professional Members at the time of application. This must be done online. Join or begin the membership process well before the deadline.
  
  
• This RFP is intended only as supplemental funding to current or past Research Goes Red (RGR) grantees.

At the American Heart Association (AHA), equity and science are at the center of everything we do.

Medical care alone is insufficient to ensure better health and well-being.¹ Understanding the role of factors such as social determinants of health, social risk factors, and health-related social needs is a crucial component of establishing equitable health for all.^2,3

Research has begun to explore the role of social determinants of health, social risk factors, and health-related social needs on cardiovascular health and well-being. Early studies have often been limited by small sample sizes and underrepresentation of ethnic and racial groups, women, people with disabilities, people from disadvantaged backgrounds and LGBTQ communities.⁴  

The focus of this RFP is to recruit and engage women in underrepresented communities into a research study using validated surveys/tools through the online research platform, Research Goes Red.

Advancing women’s health through Research Goes Red 

The American Heart Association established Research Goes Red, an online research platform available to consenting individuals over the age of 18 years in the United States.⁵ The initiative is focused on improving women’s health, and is referred to as the Research Goes Red Study. The Research Goes Red Study collects self-reported data for research (see link) and invites individuals to participate in surveys and research studies.⁵

In November 2024, the American Heart Association upgraded the capabilities of the online research platform through a collaboration with Evidation, a company that is actively creating new ways to measure and improve health. These new capabilities include Spanish translation (July 2025), and inclusion of wearable devices and electronic health records (July 2025). 

The purpose of this RFP is to recruit individuals into Research Goes Red and establish a research study utilizing validated survey instruments focused on Life’s Essential 8^TM, the key measures for improving and maintaining cardiovascular health as defined by the American Heart Association. Life’s Essential 8 comprises four health behaviors and four health factors. The four health behaviors include eating better, being more active, quitting tobacco, and getting healthy sleep. The four health factors include managing weight, controlling cholesterol, managing blood sugar and managing blood pressure.⁶ Better cardiovascular health lowers the risk for heart disease, stroke, and other chronic diseases.

This award will support recruitment of individuals into  Research Goes Red (necessary) and the establishment of a research study that includes validated surveys to consented individuals to better understand participants needs, perceptions regarding the risks of cardiovascular health and disease, and other areas which provide key pieces of information towards improving cardiovascular health using a framework of Life’s Essential 8.⁶  Each award will support between 3-8 validated surveys during the timeline of the award. Proposing non-validated surveys will be considered non-responsive to this RFP.

Examples of topics responsive to this RFP include: 

1. Collecting Life’s Essential 8 data in women from underrepresented communities (definition of underrepresented). 
2. Collecting more detailed data on Life’s Essential 8 risk factors (i.e., smoking, exercise history)
3. Collecting data on mental health and other factors that impact Life’s Essential 8 from diverse communities, evaluating how barriers may differ across communities 
4. Assessing barriers to optimization of health factors
5. Assessing barriers to optimization of behavioral factors

All applications must include a detailed plan to share their results with the participants along with suggestions to improve cardiovascular health.

We are looking for past and current Research Goes Red Awardees only.

• Each application must ensure that study participants be consented into Research Goes Red 
• Each application must leverage the American Heart Association’s Precision Medicine 

Platform to harmonize, analyze, and interpret data. Self-reported data from consenting participants in Research Goes Red is de-identified, standardized and harmonized and uploaded into the Precision Medicine Platform on a regular basis, along with data documentation for use by approved researchers. 

* Note: research study data is not routinely shared with approved researchers in the public domain until after publication. However, as the Principal Investigator of this funded research study, you will have a private secure workspace that is equipped with your research study data and any additional approved data from the broader Research Goes Red cohort.

**All applications are highly encouraged to include a data scientist with coding experience as a team member. 

Before you apply

• Each applicant must be an AHA Professional Member before submitting a pre-proposal or full proposal. Join or renew when preparing an application in ProposalCentral, or by phone at 1-888-242-2453 or 972-349-5803. Membership processing may take 3-5 days; do not wait until the application deadline to renew or join.

• Preference will be given to applicant organizations that are institutes of higher education, public entities, or nonprofits that are tax exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code and are not private foundations or Type III supporting organizations. Other types of nonprofit and for-profit organizations are also eligible to apply. The American Heart Association may require additional documentation.
  
  
• Organizations that are currently funded through other American Heart Association funding mechanisms can apply. 
  
  
• You must be a past or current Research Goes Red Awardee to apply for this grant.

Proposals for applicants must be submitted via ProposalCentral by May 1, 2024 at 3 pm CT. Late proposals will not be accepted.

CHECKLIST

A. Research Plan - Up to 6 pages that includes all items under section A below (12-point font, single space, 1-inch margins on all sides):

1. Specific Aims

• Provide a clear, concise summary of the aims of the work proposed. 
• State the hypothesis to be tested.
• State how the work will significantly add to the current work. 

2. Background and Significance

3. Preliminary Studies 

4. Research Design and Methods including validated surveys to be used.

5. Expected outcomes and deliverables, a timeline, and project success milestones.
    Discuss the potential difficulties and limitations of the proposed procedures and alternative approaches to achieve the aims.

B. Literature Cited (4-page limit; not included in 6-page Research Plan limit)

C. Biosketch (5 pages - Upload your NIH biosketch OMB No. 0925-0001 and 0925-0002 (Rev. 10/2021 Approved Through 01/31/2026). It is not necessary to reformat to AHA page specifications.

D. Budget - Information should include:

• Salary and fringe benefits of the project lead, collaborating investigators, and other participating research staff or faculty.
• Project-related expenses, such as salaries of technical personnel essential to the conduct of the project, travel, and publication costs in accordance with institutional and American Heart Association policies. Please note that the American Heart Association does not fund the costs of program implementation or operations beyond what is established in an approved budget.
• Maximum of 10% institutional indirect costs may be claimed on the award.
• The awardee will be responsible for overseeing the total budget for the grant. If awarded, the project lead and the institution assume an obligation to expend grant funds for the research purposes set forth in the application and in accordance with all regulations and policies governing the grant programs of the American Heart Association.

For all other required items not listed, please refer to sections displayed in your Proposal Central application. (e.g.: funding overlap, Assurances, Research Classifications, etc.)

AWARD DURATION & AMOUNT:

• 1-year awards from date of funding. 
• Up to $175,000/year (including 10% indirect costs).
• The American Heart Association reserves the right to determine the final number of awardees.

1.  Proposed Project

• Are the conceptual framework, design, methods, and analyses adequately developed, well-integrated, well-reasoned, feasible (as determined by preliminary data), and appropriate to the aims of the proposal? 
• How does the proposed work significantly add to the work on-going by the applicant in the initial RGR funding award?

2.  Significance

• Does this study move the field of research on Life’s Essential 8 forward?
• If the aims of the application are achieved, how will scientific knowledge or clinical practice be advanced? 
• What will be the effect of these studies on the concepts, methods and technologies that drive this field?

Additional Requirements

• The projects submitted can have no scientific or budgetary overlap with other work funded by the AHA or any other source.
• Any inventions, intellectual property, and patents resulting from this funding are governed by the AHA’s Patent, Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer Policy.
• The applicant/awardee and institution are responsible for compliance with all AHA research award policies and guidelines for the duration of any awards they may receive.
• Visit the Research Programs Awards Policies page for more information on the above topics: American Heart Association Awardee Resources

Final progress report
Awardees must submit a final progress report. Progress reports may take the form of a required written report in addition to video conferencing, phone calls, and/or face-to-face visits. Reporting will be focused on achievement of stated milestones as indicated in the project timeline. The American Heart Association reserves the right to request additional updates, site visits, or reporting.

Public access
The American Heart Association’s public access policy requires that all journal articles resulting from American Heart Association funding be made freely available in PubMed Central and attributed to a specific American Heart Association award within 12 months of publication. It is the responsibility of the awardee to ensure journal articles are deposited into PubMed Central

It is highly encouraged that any data analysis for your project be conducted via the American Heart Association’s Precision Medicine Platform, powered by Amazon Web Services. Our intent is to help applicants gain confidence leveraging cloud computing for applications and projects.

• Although we are highly encouraging the use the Precision Medicine Platform, we are not making it a requirement. We understand that a researcher may have certain restrictions that make it difficult to use the Precision Medicine Platform based on data and/or institution.
• There may be some cases where the data you will be analyzing is only approved for use in an already approved analytic environment/server and you would need to seek additional approval to upload it into a secure workspace on the Precision Medicine Platform.  The timing of getting this approval may or may not work with the start of the award (if awarded), etc.  

The Precision Medicine Platform provides you with a secure cloud computing workspace for you to use for the application and during the term of the award that allows researchers to code in various languages, including R and Python, and to use statistical software including but not limited to SAS and R studio. The most up-to-date machine learning and artificial intelligence software available from Amazon Web Services is also included. Researchers are also able to install their own tools.

The American Heart Association asks that the grantees also accelerate collaboration through the sharing of data and code as well as the coordination for interoperability of data to facilitate findability and sustainability. The American Heart Association fully supports the FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Reusable) guiding principles of data stewardship.  The Precision Medicine Platform helps to support this principle by also serving as a data marketplace and enables you to share your data and make it available to other researchers. If you were to make your data available on the Precision Medicine Platform by request at the conclusion of your award, you will be set up in our system to receive electronic notifications of these requests that you will review and approve.

Learn more about the AHA Precision Medicine Platform:

• Getting Started
• Uses
  
• Tools & Features
• Security Information

¹ Goff DC Jr, Lloyd-Jones DM, Bennett G, et al. American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines. 2013 ACC/AHA guideline on the assessment of cardiovascular risk: a report of the American College of Cardiology/American Heart Association Task Force on Practice Guidelines. Circulation. 2014;129(25) (suppl 2): S49-S73.
² Lindley KJ et al. Socioeconomic determinants of health and cardiovascular outcomes in women. JACC 2021;78(19):1919-1929.
³ Shah, NS et al. Social determinants of cardiovascular health in Asian Americans: A Scientific Statement From the American Heart Association. Circulation 2024:150(6): e296-e315.
⁴ NIH Toolkit for Patient Focused Therapy Development: https://toolkit.ncats.nih.gov/glossary/underrepresented-population/
⁵ Gilchrist S et al; Research Goes Red: Early Experience with a Participant-Centric Registry. 2022;130(3):343-351.
⁶ Lloyd-Jones DM. Life's Essential 8: Updating and Enhancing the American Heart Association's Construct of Cardiovascular Health: A Presidential Advisory From the American Heart Association. Circulation 2022:146(5): e18-e43.