Description
The U.S. Affiliated Pacific Islands (USAPI) are comprised of the three U.S. territories of American Samoa, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, and Guam, as well as the three sovereign nations of the Federated States of Micronesia, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, and the Republic of Palau.The public health care systems in these remote islands require assistance to improve the infrastructure, capacity, and local expertise to prevent HIV in high-risk populations and to effectively address the high burden of sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), tuberculosis (TB), and viral hepatitis (VH) in their jurisdictions. Additionally, laboratory capacity is limited, surveillance systems are fragmented, and provision of health care is challenging and costly due to the vast geographic distances and broadly dispersed population throughout islands across the Pacific Ocean. This integrated Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is supported by the National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP) and aims to:Promote program collaboration and services integration to capitalize on the opportunity to diagnose, treat, and prevent HIV, STD, TB, and VH in persons with similar risk factors.Improve collection, sharing, reporting, analysis, interpretation, and use of surveillance data.Assure implementation of policies and plans that will make effective use of resources to improve health outcomes.Develop the public health care workforce through training and education.Improve public health laboratory capacity.Enhance prevention, care, follow-up and treatment for disease-specific activities.Reduce administrative burdens of managing multiple cooperative agreements by consolidating the application and award process as well as streamlining the reporting requirements.