National Science Foundation's Smart Health and Wellbeing Program

by: Michael Saunders

The National Science Foundation, otherwise known as NSF, is an independent agency of the United States federal government that is greatly responsible for financing research and education activities in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering.

The efforts of the NSF are always guided by their overall agency mission, which is to "To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense."

In line with this, the National Science Foundation has constituted the development of the Smart Health and Wellbeing (SHB) Program wherein they intend to address scientific and technical issues that would pave the way towards the transformation of the healthcare process from being rather reactive and hospital centered into becoming preventive, proactive, evidence-based, patient-centered and focused on the wellbeing of the person rather than his/her disease.

The program seeks to achieve this by addressing issues that are associated with sensor technology, networking, information and machine learning technology, system and process modeling, modeling cognitive process and lastly, social and economic issues.

In this regard, the principal investigators that wish to participate in this program would have to include research studies that address the following concerns:

1) Digital Health Information Infrastructure - This dimension should include techniques and strategies that will potentially enable in interoperable, distributed, federated, and scalable digital infrastructure, languages, and tools for efficient integration and utilization of electronic health record information, as well as networked applications that can access such information.

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National Science Foundation's Smart Health and Wellbeing Program
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About The Author Michael Saunders is an editor of TopGovernmentGrants.com one the the most comprehensive Websites offering information on government grants and federal government programs. He also maintains Websites providing resources on environmental grants and grants for youth programs.

Additional Resources

category - Health Grants

Health Care Innovation Challenge
The Centers for Medicare and & Medicaid Services has recently established the Health Care Innovation Challenge in an attempt to solicit proposals to establish interesting new models of service delivery that can potentially deliver the three-part aim of better health, better health care, and finally, lower costs through the improved quality of Medicare, Medicaid, and Children's Health Insurance Program.

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Funding Opportunity Announcement: Developing Sustainable Healthy Behaviors in Children and Adolescents
The FOA is designed to encourage the use of Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant Awards in employing innovative research studies that would help in determining mechanisms that could promote and influence positive sustainable health behaviors in children and in adolescents, from birth to 18 years old.

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Academic-Community Partnership Conference Series Program
In line with this mission, the National Institutes of Health has recently formed a partnership with the The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) to establish the Academic-Community Partnership Conference Series Program wherein both agencies seek to solicit grant application that intend to conduct health disparities-related meetings, workshops, symposiums.

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Cancer Education Grants Program
The National Cancer Institute has developed the Cancer Education Grants Program wherein it seeks to financially support innovative educational efforts that would contribute to the reduction of cancer incidences, morbidity and mortality rates; as well as the improvement of the quality of life of surviving cancer patients.

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