Grants target multidisciplinary research.

The Childhood Obesity Prevention and Treatment Research Consortium funding opportunity aims to improve communication between prevention and treatment efforts and to identify interventions that work.

Childhood obesity is a major problem. In 2003-2004, 33.6 percent of children aged two to 19 years were at or above the 85th percentile of body mass index, according to the request for proposals. Obesity during childhood is associated with numerous adverse effects such as high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, sleep disorders, and atherosclerosis.

But it’s a thorny problem to solve. A recent review of 22 obesity prevention studies found only two prevention trials where the interventions significantly lowered children's BMI. Obesity prevention studies in children have been limited in size and in intervention duration, breadth, and intensity, the request said.

Research Should Address Many Issues

Intervention designs have not considered the multiple factors -- individual behavior; peer influence; home, family, and school environment; and healthcare setting -- associated with overweight and obesity, the Department of Health and Human Services said. Therefore, the department wants to hear from multi-disciplinary research teams, networks, or collaborative groups.

The department is interested in prevention efforts in pre-schoolers and pre-adolescents and treatment efforts in pre-adolescents and adolescents. Serious, scientific research is the focus; projects seeking funding should feature randomized controlled trials and clearly defined research hypotheses, HHS said.

A total of $49.75 million will be awarded over seven years. Maximum allowable direct costs for a Research Center are $700,000 in Year 1 and 2, $1,500,000 per year in years 3-6, and $700,000 in year 7. Eligible applicants include public/state controlled institutions of higher education, private institutions of higher education, non-profits, for-profits, and governments.