Community-Based Approaches to Reducing Sexually Transmitted Diseases (CARS)

CDC proposes to allocate funds to implement Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) CDC-RFA-PS23-0006, Community-Based Approaches to Reducing Sexually Transmitted Diseases. The project period will be Three years, with three12-month budget periods and an anticipated project start date of September 30, 2023. The purpose of this NOFO is to implement community engagement methods to achieve health equity, via the identification and implementation of structural strategies promoting personal health. Recipients will support healthy behaviors, facilitate community-clinical linkages to build support for interventions to prevent and reduce STD disparities, enhance and sustain partnerships, support communication strategies that promote STD program successes and leverage additional resources for STD, HIV, viral hepatitis control and prevention, and evaluate the efficacy of this intervention approach. The new FOA provides support in five focus areas: (1) implementation of community engagement methods (e.g. community-based participatory research) to achieve health equity; (2) identification and implementation of systems and environmental change strategies that (a) promote sexual health and support healthy behaviors and (b) facilitate community-clinical linkages to build support for interventions to prevent and reduce STI disparities; (3) enhancement and sustainability of partnerships; (4) support for communication strategies to promote STD program successes and leverage additional resources for STI control and prevention; and (5) evaluation of the efficacy of this approach and intervention implementation.