Printer Friendly
Text Size
A
A
A
U.S. Department of Health & Human Services
Summary
Charts
Complete List of Activities
Type Of Collaboration
Committee, Advisory Group, or Work Group
Health Survey
Meeting/Workshop
Public Education Campaign
Research Initiative
Resource Development
Training Initiative
Other
Agency Collaborations
Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
Administration for Community Living (ACL)
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
Indian Health Service (IHS)
Office of the Secretary (OS)
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
HOME
>
CRS Home
Report on NIH Collaborations with Other HHS Agencies for Fiscal Year 2018
Print
Previous Years Submissions
Summary
Introduction
This annual report captures the extent and nature of activities undertaken by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in collaboration with the other agencies and divisions of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Tasked with improving the health of the American public, HHS consists of many agencies and divisions, and synergy between these different components is vital to the success of the whole. In recognition of the important role of collaboration between HHS agencies, Congress added section 403A(a) of the Public Health Service Act, 42 U.S.C. § 283a(a),
Annual Reporting to Increase Interagency Collaboration and Coordination
, via Section 104 of the National Institutes of Health Reform Act of 2006. This law mandates that the NIH Director provide to the Secretary of HHS an annual report on NIH’s collaborations with other HHS agencies. This, our twelfth report to the Secretary, covers fiscal year (FY) 2018.
Background
The HHS mission is to enhance the health and well-being of all Americans by providing for effective health and human services and by fostering sound, sustained advances in the sciences underlying medicine, public health, and social services. As outlined in the
HHS Strategic Plan FY 2018-2022
, the Department sets forth five interrelated, strategic goals to achieve this mission:
Reform, Strengthen, and Modernize the Nation’s Healthcare System
Protect the Health of Americans Where They Live, Learn, Work, and Play
Strengthen the Economic and Social Well-Being of Americans Across the Lifespan
Foster Sound, Sustained Advances in the Sciences
Promote Effective and Efficient Management and Stewardship
HHS accomplishes its mission and meets its strategic goals and associated objectives, strategies, and performance goals through the work of its eleven operating divisions, including eight agencies in the U.S. Public Health Service and three human service agencies, which administer HHS’s multifaceted programs and initiatives. In addition, staff divisions of the Office of the Secretary provide leadership, direction, and policy guidance to the Department. Together, this ‘HHS Family’ covers a vast spectrum of activities that affect health, public health, and human services outcomes. With more than 115 programs across the Department, the ultimate success of all components of the HHS family is enhanced by interagency collaborations that enable agencies to combine their knowledge and diverse expertise to accomplish their collective mission. Such cross-agency teamwork is necessary to create a collaborative community within HHS that accelerates progress in medicine, health services, and public health programs.
Since its origin in 1887, as a one-room laboratory in the Marine Hospital Service, NIH has been charged with improving health through research. As the largest research arm of HHS, NIH’s mission is “to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability,” which it fulfills through its congressionally mandated
NIH-Wide Strategic Plan, Fiscal Years 2016–2020: Turning Discovery Into Health
. NIH’s collaborative efforts with other HHS agencies are vital to transforming fundamental scientific and technical information into effective, knowledge-based approaches that advance the health and safety of the public, such as disease treatments, preventive interventions, protective health policies and regulations, and public health campaigns. In turn, the information provided by other HHS agencies on public health needs informs the policies and priorities of NIH-funded research.
The interagency collaborations included in this report cover joint activities undertaken by NIH with all other components of HHS, including the
staff divisions within the Office of the Secretary (OS)
1
and the ten other operating divisions of HHS:
Administration for Children and Families (ACF)
Administration for Community Living (ACL)
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ)
Agency for Toxic Substances & Disease Registry (ATSDR)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA)
Indian Health Service (IHS)
Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)
FY 2018 Collaboration Themes
NIH and other HHS operating, and staff divisions reported 560 collaborative activities in FY 2018. These cross-agency collaborations demonstrate the complex array of health efforts that NIH contributes to in partnership with the rest of the Department and are organized into six themes in this report:
Assessing the Public’s Health
– enabling better tracking of disease and disability
Improving Diagnostics and Treatment
– promoting research, and the translation of NIH’s research results into safe and effective diagnostics and treatments
Preventing Disease and Disability
– providing the evidence base for national disease and disability prevention efforts
Providing Evidence-Based Health Information
– equipping public health efforts and the American public with the latest research findings and best available health information
Keeping Americans Safe
– ensuring effective health policy and regulatory protections
Broad, Multi-Purpose Coordination
– coordinating complex strategic planning efforts that cut across the entire Department
Examples of collaboration activities from each thematic area are included in
Figure 1
and described in the “FY 2018 Collaboration Highlights” section to follow.
Figure 1: Advancing the Public’s Health: Thematic Areas of NIH’s Collaborations with Other Agencies of the Department of Health and Human Services.
These examples of cross-agency collaboration demonstrate the broad spectrum of health efforts that NIH contributes to in partnership with the rest of the Department.
FY 2018 Collaborative Activities by the Numbers
In FY 2018, NIH reported 560 collaborations with other HHS entities as depicted below in
The Complete List of Activities
. Fifty-three new collaborations were reported in FY 2018, across a range of issues, including activities devoted to opioid use disorder, oral health and aging, cancer, obesity, hearing loss, and the Influenza and Ebola viruses.
Each collaborative activity has been categorized based on the nature of the activity.
Chart 1
illustrates how the activities break down across the following categories: Committee, Work Group, or Advisory Group (292 activities); Research Initiative (100); Resource Development, e.g., developing databases, disease registries, and information clearinghouses (67); Meeting or Workshop (31); Public Education Campaign (14); Health Survey (14); Training Initiative (12); or Other (30).
Chart 2
displays the number of reported collaborative activities that NIH engaged in with each HHS operating or staff division.
2
As Chart 2 illustrates, the majority of NIH’s collaborations were with CDC (342) and FDA (279). Given the complementary missions of CDC, FDA, and NIH, the three agencies often work together closely to build on each other’s strengths and achieve shared objectives. While NIH conducts and funds basic and applied biomedical and behavioral research, CDC engages in health promotion, prevention of disease, injury and disability, and preparedness for new health threats, and FDA ensures the safety of drugs, medical devices, and many other products that stem from biomedical research. There is also substantial cross-talk between NIH and the OS, especially in the coordination of multi-agency initiatives, committees, and working groups.
FY 2018 Collaboration Highlights by Thematic Area
The following summary illustrates how NIH collaborates with the other HHS agencies to help improve the health and well-being of the American public. Introduced in
Figure 1
(above), examples of specific collaborations in each of the six highlighted themes are described in greater detail in this section. Ultimately, these diverse collaborative efforts strengthen the HHS ecosystem, helping to foster a healthier country and a healthier world.
Theme 1: Assessing the Public’s Health
Cross-agency collaborations play a vital role in defining the scope of public health factors, enabling better tracking of disease and disability, and of health outcomes. NIH partners with other HHS agencies to collect and use data on disease burden, as well as to understand the factors that influence health within and across different segments of the population. Through such surveillance efforts, the Department can set priorities regarding current and emerging public health needs, and NIH can refine its strategic research priorities. These intra-Departmental partnerships encompass efforts to examine disease prevalence and risk factors across a range of issues, such as
cancer
,
tobacco use
,
nutritional health
, and
opioid use
. Important collaborations also address the needs of specific groups, including
American Indian/Alaska Natives
. In this section, several health surveillance efforts and national surveys are highlighted.
There are a number of intra-Departmental surveillance efforts focusing on specific diseases and health conditions, such as the efforts to better understand and lessen the harmful effects of tobacco use in our nation.
The Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health (PATH) Study
is the first large-scale NIH and FDA collaboration since Congress granted FDA the authority to regulate tobacco products in the Family Smoking Prevention and Tobacco Control Act (FSPTCA) in 2009. The PATH Study is a national longitudinal cohort study that will follow an estimated 59,000 U. S. household residents ages 12 years and older for at least three years. Objectives are to assess initiation and use patterns; to study trends in tobacco-product use cessation and relapse; to monitor behavioral and health impacts, including in risk perceptions and other tobacco-related attitudes; and to assess differences in tobacco-related attitudes, behaviors, and health outcomes among racial/ethnic, gender, and age subgroups. The PATH Study will also collect biospecimens from adults to analyze biomarkers of tobacco use and related health outcomes. By measuring and accurately reporting on the social, behavioral, and health effects associated with tobacco-product use in the U.S., the PATH Study will provide an empirical evidence base to help inform FDA’s decisions about changes in tobacco products in meeting the objectives of the 2009 FSPTCA.
NIH and CDC also partner on several surveillance efforts, including those designed to guide and prioritize cancer control and statistics in the U.S. For example the,
State Cancer Profiles
website is a publicly accessible resource that characterizes the burden of different types of cancer in each state in a dynamic and standardized manner in order to motivate action, integrate surveillance into cancer control planning, characterize areas and demographic groups, and expose health disparities. The focus is on cancer sites with evidence-based control interventions. Interactive graphics and maps provide visual support for deciding where to focus cancer control efforts.
Another collaborative activity with the CDC that is focused on cancer is the National Cancer Institute (NCI’s)
HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study
. Since the beginning of the HIV epidemic, cancer has figured prominently in the spectrum of immunodeficiency-related manifestations. The purpose of the HIV/AIDS Cancer Match Study is to examine the patterns of cancer risk among HIV-infected people, providing valuable data to researchers, public health authorities, and clinicians. The largest study of cancer in HIV-infected people, it compares the risk of cancer in HIV-infected people with that in the general population to determine which cancers arise more frequently than expected, identifying those HIV-infected individuals at especially high risk of cancer. Through frequent updates of the data, investigators also monitor changing trends in cancer risk over time.
HHS agencies also collaborate on a variety of ongoing efforts to broadly measure population health and disease.
The National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES)
coordinated by the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) within the CDC, has collected data on the nation’s health since the early 1960s through personal household interviews around the nation. NIH supports this effort by providing assistance in developing specific sections of the survey, such as the cardiovascular, oral health, and hearing-related components. NHANES is a large program of studies designed to assess the health and nutritional status of adults and children in the U.S. This survey is unique in that it combines interviews and physical examinations to address a number of health conditions as well as nutritional status for adults and children.
Theme 2: Improving Diagnostics and Treatment
In striving to provide the best options in medical care and health practice, NIH works across the Department to help develop new, more effective ways to diagnose and treat disease and promote good health. The primary goal of NIH’s translational and clinical research is to improve health interventions to provide the best available care for those who need it. Cooperative efforts with other HHS agencies, such as those described in this section, help ensure that the wealth of information gleaned from research activities can be disseminated and implemented throughout the Department and in the community.
Launched in April 2018 by NIH,
the Helping to End Addiction Long Term (HEAL) Initiative
is an aggressive, trans-agency effort with AHRQ, CDC, CMS, HRSA, OS, and SAMSHA to speed scientific solutions to stem the national opioid public health crisis. This initiative will build on extensive, well-established NIH research, including basic science on the complex neurological pathways involved in pain and addiction, implementation science to develop and test treatment models, and research to integrate behavioral interventions with
Medication-Assisted Treatment (MAT)
for opioid use disorder.
The Foundation for the NIH Biomarkers Consortium
is a public-private biomedical research partnership managed by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health (FNIH) that endeavors to discover, develop, and qualify biological markers (biomarkers) to support new drug development, preventive medicine, and medical diagnostics. Biomarkers are objectively measurable indicators of normal and abnormal biological states, such as, for example, hemoglobin A1C as a biomarker of blood sugar control in diabetics. The Biomarkers Consortium, with NIH, FDA, CMS, and private sector members, is looking to rapidly identify, develop, and qualify potential high-impact biomarkers to enable improvements in drug development, clinical care, and regulatory decision-making in areas as diverse as Alzheimer’s disease, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and breast cancer. For example, in 2018 the Consortium announced that FDA had qualified a new biomarker for use in Phase 1 clinical trials to detect acute kidney injury by investigational drugs, helping to improve the development of safe and effective drugs.
The Accelerating Medicines Partnership (AMP)
is a public-private partnership between NIH, FDA, 12 biopharmaceutical companies and multiple non-profit organizations, and is managed by FNIH. Its aim is to transform the current model for developing new diagnostics and treatments by jointly identifying and validating promising biological targets for therapeutics. The ultimate goal is to increase the number of new diagnostics and therapies for patients and reduce the time and cost of developing them. AMP was launched in February 2014, with projects in three disease areas (Alzheimer’s disease; type 2 diabetes; and autoimmune disorders of rheumatoid arthritis and systemic lupus erythematosus). AMP added Parkinson’s disease as its fourth area of focus in January 2018.
Another collaborative initiative focused on improving treatment is the
Diabetic Retinopathy Clinical Research Network (DRCR.net)
, a collaborative network dedicated to facilitating multicenter clinical research on diabetic retinopathy, diabetic macular edema, and associated conditions. DRCR.net’s mission is to improve the lives of individuals with retinal pathology by supporting research that leads to a better understanding of retinal diseases and advances their treatment. Principal emphasis is placed on clinical trials, but epidemiologic outcomes and other research may be supported as well. The network is funded by NIH, and OS, with the Special Funding Program for Type 1 Diabetes Research.
Theme 3: Preventing Disease and Disability
Preventing disease and disability before it starts is critical to helping people live longer, healthier lives. Poor diet, physical inactivity, tobacco use, and alcohol misuse all have been shown to have negative health consequences for Americans. Minimizing these and other risk factors can result in major public health gains and coordinating efforts across HHS is central to the success of national prevention strategies. NIH works to expand the evidence-base for prevention strategies and partners with other HHS agencies to change the way communities conceptualize and solve problems, enhance implementation of innovative strategies, and improve individual and community well-being. Examples of interagency prevention efforts include those aimed at reducing
smoking
,
hearing loss
, and
mental health disorders
, along with many others.
Smokefree.gov
is a website that has been designed through the collaborative efforts of NIH, CDC, and OS to help individuals quit smoking, with the understanding that different people need different resources as they try to quit. The information and professional assistance available on this website can help to support both immediate and long-term needs as individuals become, and remain, a nonsmoker. Smokefree.gov allows individuals to choose the help that best fits their needs. This collaboration also includes a number of smoking cessation text message programs throughout the world from a myriad of different regions including, China, Caribbean, Guam, American Samoa, and Samoa.
It’s a Noisy Planet. Protect Their Hearing®
is a national public education campaign to increase awareness among parents of children ages 8 to 12 about noise-induced hearing loss and how to prevent it. The campaign disseminates messages through print and digital materials, social media, community events, school presentations, and other methods. The CDC’s National Center for Environmental Health and National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) have actively collaborated with the National Institute on Deafness and other Communication Disorders (NIDCD) for this campaign. NIH has also partnered with CDC and HRSA on the
Early Hearing Detection and Intervention
, an effort targeted towards early identification and diagnosis of hearing loss and intervention services for newborns and infants. Hearing loss can affect a child’s ability to develop communication, language, and social skills. The earlier children with hearing loss start getting services, the more likely they are to reach their full potential. HRSA funds awards to states and healthcare providers to screen newborns and young children for hearing loss. CDC funds states to develop data systems to track hearing loss, while NIDCD funds research to study early hearing detection and intervention services.
The early identification of
psychosis
is key to the treatment of schizophrenia and other severe mental disorders. To better understand and provide services for individuals at clinical high-risk for psychosis in the community, NIH collaborated with the SAMHSA in sponsoring the “Implementing Early Intervention Services for Clinical High Risk for Psychosis in U.S. Community Settings: What Do We Know and What Do We Need to Know?” research meeting in July 2017. Building on the outcomes of the meeting, the National Institute of Mental Health subsequently provided SAMHSA technical expertise in developing the current platform for 21 service grants to community mental health providers for services for individuals at
clinical high-risk for psychosis
.
Theme 4: Providing Evidence-Based Health Information
The biomedical and behavioral research that NIH funds establishes most of the evidence base for understanding health risks. However, to have a tangible impact on population health, this information must be effectively and broadly communicated to the American public in order to empower individuals to make informed decisions about their personal health. In order to achieve this goal, NIH works with other HHS agencies on numerous large-scale health promotion campaigns and information portals. Examples include informational websites dedicated to
diabetes
,
respiratory disease
, and
sleep health
. A few other notable public health campaigns and information portals are highlighted below.
The Healthy People initiative is a collaborative health promotion and disease prevention effort with a vision towards a healthier nation. Every decade, the initiative seeks to develop a set of objectives to improve health and eliminate health disparities over the course of that decade.
Healthy People 2020
is a collaboration across the Department to measure public health outcomes for a variety of common diseases over the current decade. As part of this, NIH is collaborating on
Healthy People 2020-Visual Health
, the goal of which is to improve the visual health through prevention, early detection, timely treatment, and rehabilitation. NIH is also is collaborating on
Healthy People 2020 - Kidney Disease
through its support of data collection in the U.S. Renal Data System. Healthy People 2030 is currently in the planning stage. For example,
Healthy People 2030 - Respiratory Diseases
is a collaborative activity, involving NIH, to support the identification of nationally representative measures that could be used to assess progress towards achieving respiratory disease objectives over the next decade.
Healthy People 2030 - Sleep Health
is another collaborative Heathy People activity to support the identification of nationally representative measures that could be used to assess progress towards achieving sleep health objectives.
Over 30 million adults in the U.S. have diabetes, a chronic (long-lasting) health condition, which is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S. Established in 1997, the
National Diabetes Education Program (NDEP)
, is a federally-funded program sponsored by NIH and CDC and includes partners at the federal, state, and local levels that work together to improve the treatment and outcomes for people with diabetes, promote early diagnosis, and prevent or delay the onset of type 2 diabetes.
Theme 5: Keeping Americans Safe
Through research, regulation, and policy development, HHS agencies are committed to protecting the health and safety of all Americans. With HHS and other federal partners, NIH works to ensure that proper policies are in place to protect the public, including confirming that medical products are safe and effective, that emerging health and biosecurity threats can be identified and addressed swiftly, that appropriate biosafety protocols are in place to prevent laboratory accidents, and that scientific information is used in responsible ways.
To improve surveillance of disease-causing bacteria and foodborne disease, NIH in collaboration with CDC and FDA, established the
Pathogen Detection Project and Interagency Collaboration on Genomics for Food and Feed Safety (Gen-FS)
. This project is a multi-agency collaboration that is combining data from pathogen outbreaks with other information to determine the major source of contamination. The project is conducted via a centralized system that integrates genetic sequence data for bacterial pathogens obtained from food, the environment, and human patients. A number of public health agencies in the U.S. and internationally are collecting samples from these sources to facilitate active, real-time surveillance of pathogens and foodborne disease. The agencies sequence the samples and submit the data to the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) in the National Library of Medicine (NLM) at NIH which analyzes the sequences against others in its database to identify closely related sequences. The aim is to uncover potential sources of contamination by linking isolates from food or the environment to human illness and to quickly report the sequence relationships to public health scientists in order to aid traceback investigations and outbreak response. Collaborating agencies include FDA, CDC, USDA-Food Safety and Inspection Service, and Public Health England.
Enhancing biosafety and biosecurity in health science research is a high priority and requires close collaboration between federal departments and agencies. The
National Science Advisory Board for Biosecurity (NSABB)
, managed by NIH, is a Federal advisory committee chartered to provide advice, guidance, and leadership regarding biosecurity oversight of research yielding new technologies or information with the potential for both benevolent and malevolent applications (dual use research) to all federal departments and agencies with an interest in life sciences research. NSABB also undertakes domestic and international outreach and education efforts to raise awareness of issues related to biosecurity and
dual use research of concern
, the small subset of life sciences research with the highest potential for yielding knowledge, products, or technology that could be misapplied to threaten public health or national security.
HHS must be poised to address public health emergency risks, and several interagency collaborations aid this effort. The
Public Health Emergency Medical Countermeasures Enterprise (PHEMCE)
, led by the HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), is a collaboration that includes NIH, CDC, and FDA along with several other interagency partners. PHEMCE coordinates federal efforts to enhance chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats and emerging diseases preparedness from a medical countermeasure perspective. Similarly, NIH collaborates on the PHEMCE’s
Chemical Integrated Product Development Team (IPT)
, which leads the mission to develop and acquire medical countermeasures that will improve public health emergency preparedness as well as prevent and mitigate the adverse health consequences associated with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear, and naturally occurring threats. NIH also provides support to the
Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA)
, which guides research and development of medical countermeasures for radiation injury and for biomarkers for assessing injury, dose, and who needs treatment. In addition, NIH collaborates through the
Countermeasures Against Chemical Threats (CounterACT) Research Network
translational research program, supporting basic, translational, and clinical research aimed at the discovery and identification of better therapeutic medical countermeasures and diagnostic technologies against chemical threat agents, which facilitates their movement through the regulatory process in collaboration with other federal departments and agencies. The program includes a comprehensive network of Research Centers of Excellence, individual co-operative research projects, small business innovation research grants, contracts, and interagency agreements with the Department of Defense.
Theme 6: Broad, Multi-Purpose Coordination
Given the complexity of major public health challenges, there is often a need for formal cross-agency strategic planning to ensure that all agencies within the Department are working in concert toward larger health goals. The five-year HHS Strategic Plan described above and the interdepartmental ten-year agenda for improving the nation’s health,
Healthy People 2020
, are important examples of strategic planning endeavors that outline pathways to achieve broad health-related objectives. In addition, HHS supports several activities designed to improve the functions of the Department as a whole. For example, to achieve better coordination of its data collection and analysis activities, the HHS Data Council was established in 1996, and to make better use of evidence to evaluate its functions and capture its outcomes, the HHS Evidence and Evaluation Policy Council was instituted in 2016. NIH is an active member of both Councils.
The overarching goals for Healthy People 2020 incorporate a focus on social determinants of health as well as on health outcomes and risk factors. The
Healthy People 2020 - Social Determinants of Health Working Group
develops broad objectives to identify and mitigate social determinants and ensure their integration across all Healthy People 2020 objectives. NIH is also collaborating with the Office of Disease Prevention and Health Promotion within the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health to develop a web-based resource for public health information through the creation of structured PubMed searches by means of the
Healthy People 2020 - Structured Evidence Queries (SEQs)
. Each PubMed search is a structured evidence query (SEQ) or "seek" developed by the medical librarians and reviewed by members of the Healthy People 2020 working groups. These defined PubMed searches enable the public health workforce to find evidence-based information related to a specific Healthy People 2020 objective. The SEQs are accessible from the Healthy People 2020 website as well as the PHPartners.org website.
Chaired by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID), the
the Autoimmune Diseases Coordinating Committee (ADCC)
provides a forum for the coordination of research efforts in autoimmunity and autoimmune diseases among various stakeholders including NIH, other federal agencies such as the FDA and the CDC, and private organizations with an interest in autoimmune diseases. The ADCC meets twice yearly to discuss a broad range of basic, preclinical, and clinical endeavors.
The
Interagency Coordinating Committee on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (ICCFASD)
was created in October 1996 in response to recommendations of an expert committee of the Institute of Medicine. Chaired by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the Committee coordinates federal activities on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS), and other disorders associated with prenatal alcohol exposure. ICCFASD works to improve communication, cooperation, and collaboration among disciplines and federal agencies that address issues of health, education, developmental disability, research, justice, and social services relevant to FAS and related disorders caused by prenatal alcohol exposure.
Conclusions
HHS accomplishes its mission to enhance and protect the health and well-being of all Americans through the numerous programs and initiatives that cover a vast spectrum of activities that affect health, public health, and human services outcome. America’s investment in NIH provides the nation with a unique resource—a scientific agency devoted to the creation of a knowledge base needed to conquer the most devastating human diseases and disabilities. For this rich knowledge base to improve health, the Department, as well as the entire federal government and the private sector, must work in concert to cultivate ground-breaking research and ensure that scientific knowledge is translated into sound regulations and policies, health services and medical interventions, and information that all Americans can use to lead healthier lives.
NIH appreciates the opportunity to report on its multifaceted collaborations within the HHS. The policies, programs, and regulatory and service activities developed and carried out by HHS operating and staff divisions are some of the most effective means that the government can use to improve the health and well-being of its citizens. The collaborative activities detailed in this report illustrate how NIH works across the Department to cultivate partnerships, leveraging the respective strengths of all HHS agencies to support the HHS mission and strengthen the public health ecosystem.
[1]
The staff divisions of the Office of the HHS Secretary (OS) are: the Immediate Office of the Secretary (IOS), Assistant Secretary for Administration (ASA), Assistant Secretary for Financial Resources (ASFR), Assistant Secretary for Global Affairs (ASGA), Assistant Secretary for Health (ASH), Assistant Secretary for Legislation (ASL), Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR), Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs (ASPA), Center for Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships (CFBNP), Departmental Appeals Board (DAB), Office for Civil Rights (OCR), Office of the General Counsel (OGC), Office of Inspector General (OIG), Office of Intergovernmental and External Affairs (IEA), Office of Medicare Hearings and Appeals (OMHA), and the Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC).
[2]
Individual collaborative activities can involve multiple HHS agencies. Therefore, the values displayed in Chart 2 reflect duplicate counts and add up to more than the total reported sums.
Download Readers: