Cooperative Agreement for Emergency Response: Public Health Crisis Response

CDC seeks to enhance the Nation's ability to rapidly mobilize and respond to specific public health emergencies, which may include infectious disease outbreaks, pandemics, and other public health emergencies that exceed the capacity of jurisdictional public health resources. From experience through previous emergency events, CDC recognizes the impact that initial funding and immediate response can have in mitigating negative health outcomes. Thus, CDC is creating this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to rapidly fund pre-approved applicants to address immediate and time-sensitive needs that are integral to specific public health responses. This NOFO is intended to fund jurisdictional public health departments for response to HHS Secretarial declared and nondeclared public health emergencies and other public health emergencies which CDC deems in accordance with the purpose of the NOFO. The award dates and project periods listed are subject to change and are contingent upon the occurence of a public health crisis as defined in this NOFO and the availability of funding for the response. Awardees would be approved but unfunded until a crisis occurs, enabling them to plan for emergency activation activities. CDC has strong relationships with state and local health departments, community-based organizations and other domestic partners and supports them for planning, capacity-building, preparedness, and response to public health emergencies. This support is provided through various programs including the Public Health Emergency Preparedness (PHEP) and the Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases (ELC) cooperative agreements. This new NOFO complements these ongoing capacity-building and response programs by providing a mechanism for CDC to rapidly mobilize and fund jurisdictions for specific response needs for specific public health emergencies. CDC will consider funding pre-award costs. This NOFO is comprised of two components: A and B. These components may be funded sequentially or simultaneously as determined by CDC regarding an identified specific public health emergency. Component A is focused on initial emergency response activation and stand-up activities routinely required in preparing for and responding to an impending or existing emergency. In response to Component A of this NOFO, applicants will describe/address initial activities required to strengthen incident management for crisis response, including but not limited to, emergency operations center (EOC) activation, staffing contracts, needs assessment, accelerated planning, call center activation, and strengthening jurisdictional recovery efforts. Component B is focused on the actions necessary to tackle a specific emergency. Applicants will address the crisis-specific response activities required to respond based on the four additional domains of the provided logic model (information management, countermeasures and mitigation, surge management, and biosurveillance). A scenario has been provided in section "D" work plan, which applicants will use to develop their proposal to this component. The scenario is broad and focused on emerging infectious disease as that such an event is most likely to require federal support to respond. However, it is not CDC's intent to restrict the use of this mechanism to infectious disease. As previously stated, CDC will provide additional information and supplemental guidance regarding its intent to implement this NOFO. Upon occurrence of a significant public health emergency, CDC will establish and provide supplemental guidance specific to that emergency and can then rapidly fund specific applicants for start-up and specific interventions, mitigation, and other activities based on the particular situation and needs. Categories/functional areas to be addressed include, but are not limited to: Staffing (e.g., Epidemiologists, Laboratorians, Health Communication Specialists, Planners, Logisticians, Public Health Nurses, etc.) Equipment Laboratory support Risk communications Surveillance Technical assistance Emergency response/operations Mass dispensing Technical assistance Information technology Vector control Data entry and analysis