Deadline:

Feb 24, 2009 - Closed

Program Area:

Childhood Obesity

Purpose:

Healthy Eating Research is a national program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The program supports research on environmental and policy strategies with strong potential to promote healthy eating among children to prevent childhood obesity, especially among low-income and racial/ethnic populations at highest risk for obesity. Findings will advance RWJF's efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic by 2015.

Round 4 funding focuses on studies of policy and environmental strategies in four areas:

1. food pricing and economic approaches;
2. food and beverage marketing;
3. improving access to healthy foods in low-income communities; and
4. evaluations of promising food-related policy and environmental strategies in settings where children and their families make food choices.

Program Information:

• Call for Proposals


• Overview (PDF)

Eligibility & Selection Criteria:

Preference will be given to those applicants that are either public entities or nonprofit organizations that are tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code. Applicant organizations must be based in the United States or its territories at the time of application. The focus of this program is the United States; studies in other countries will be considered only to the extent that they may directly inform U.S. policy.

All proposals will be assessed by a committee composed of RWJF staff, national program office staff at the University of Minnesota, a senior program advisory panel and other expert reviewers. The committee will use the following criteria to assess proposals:

• Ability to identify policies and environmental changes or strategies that hold strong potential to produce changes that accelerate the nation’s efforts to reverse the childhood obesity epidemic.
• Potential to eliminate disparities in children’s access to and consumption of healthy foods and beverages.
• Relevance and timeliness of project to inform policy action.
• The degree to which the strategies are widely applicable, feasible and sustainable.
• Relevance to the needs of low-resource communities and children in low-income and racial/ethnic minority populations at highest risk for obesity.
• Clarity of project goals, hypotheses, methods and outcomes.
• Use of a clear theoretical framework, conceptual model or rationale.
• Scientific rigor of proposed research and analytic methods, including quality of the measures and data to be used.
• Relevance of the project to the four areas targeted in this round of funding and uniqueness of the project in relation to the mix of potentially fundable projects.
• Research qualifications and experience of the investigator(s) and appropriateness of disciplines and perspectives represented.
• Appropriateness of proposed budget and project timeline.
• Plan for communicating and disseminating research results not only to scientists, but also to policy-makers and relevant stakeholders.

Key Dates:

• February 24, 2009 (3 p.m. ET)—Deadline for receipt of brief proposals.
• January 30, 2009—Optional Web conference call for potential applicants. For complete details and to register, visit www.healthyeatingresearch.org.
• May 1, 2009—Applicants notified if invited to submit full proposals.
• June 12, 2009 (3 p.m. ET)—Deadline for receipt of full proposals.

Total Award:

Approximately $2.4 million will be awarded for two types of research grants focused in the four areas listed above:

Small- and large-scale studies

• 12- to 18-month awards of up to $150,000 each.
• 18- to 36-month awards of up to $400,000 each.

Macro-level analyses

• 12- to 18-month awards of up to $100,000 each.

Contact:

Kathy Kosiak, research coordinator
healthyeating@umn.edu
Office: (800) 578-8636

Related Materials:

• View National Program Office


• View Program FAQs