AMENDMENT 1 - Responses to Questions.pdf

AMENDMENT

“Estimates of the Economic Burden of Health Disparities”

Responses to Questions from RFQ-NIH-NIMHD-OD-2020-11

This amendment is hereby released to provide answers to questions received in response to the subject solicitation issued on June 25, 2020. Offerors were instructed to provide all questions no later than 11:00 a.m. on June 30, 2020. In the following document, the Government provides the answers to each question that was received. No further questions will be accepted in regards to this solicitation.

BUSINESS QUESTIONS

TECHNICAL QUESTIONS

1. Is there currently a vendor performing these services or have these services been contracted in the past? In either case, would you be able to provide the contract number? No. This is a new requirement.

1. LaVeist, Gaskin and Richard (2011) paper presented no measures of uncertainty (e.g. standard errors, confidence intervals). Is derivation of such measures within the scope of this project? These are especially important given that Task 10 involves a decision making process of identifying high priority areas; measures of uncertainty are absolutely necessary for decision making under uncertainty. Yes, derivation of measures of uncertainty as well as any other computations that could aid in decision-making would be within the scope of this project. This information needs to be useful to provide a relevant trend in relation to what was previously done to determine any changes in the economic burden of health disparities.

2. Since LaVeist, Gaskin and Richard (2011) paper was published before deposition of the code and the data was a requirement, does NIMHD have a process of clarifying the aspects of the methodology that needs to be reproduced? Does NIMHD have access to the programs used by LaVeist et al (2011)? The methodology used by LaVeist et al has been published in several peer-reviewed papers referenced in the statement of work (SOW).

Regarding the data, as mentioned in the SOW, these analyses will rely on publicly available national datasets and it is the responsibility of the contractor to secure access to the data.

3. Can the government please clarify the need for a technical expert with demonstrated experience in microsimulation modeling? Will the government want a microsimulation model to be built from this effort and if so under what associated task? Microsimulation modeling could be useful to determine the level of granularity of the geographic areas (tasks 10-13).

4. The Government prefers a SME that can “Demonstrate track record of peer-reviewed publications related to economic burden of health disparities” will relevant experience in reports that are non-peer reviewed be acceptable instead? It is essential to demonstrate experience in peer-reviewed publications. Additional experience in non-peer reviewed reports and similar data tasks is fine and may be considered.

5. It is possible that some sub-state estimates will involve the use of MEPS microdata. Will researchers need to obtain access to MEPS restricted data files through a Federal Statistical Research Data Center? Can the costs associated with such a visit be listed as an ODC? Offerors are responsible for obtaining access to all the data for these analyzes, including the MEPS restricted data if necessary. Costs associated for such access can be categorized as an ODC.