RFP.pdf

U.S. Department of Health & Human Services

National Institutes of Health

NATIONAL INSTITUTE ON MINORITY HEALTH AND

HEALTH DISPARITIES

Request for Proposal

“NIMHD U.S. Burden of Health Disparities by Race/Ethnicity, Sex, Education, Age and County

NIH-NIMHD-2023-7

Administered by the Office of Acquisitions, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

February 7, 2023

PART I – THE SCHEDULE

THE INFORMATION SET FORTH IN SECTION A – SOLICITATION/CONTRACT FORM, HEREIN CONTAINS IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR ANY OFFEROR/VENDOR INTERESTED IN RESPONDING TO THIS SOLICITATION. ANY CONTRACT RESULTING FROM THIS SOLICITATION WILL INCLUDE IN ITS SECTION A- SOLICITATION/CONTRACT FORM ACCOUNTING, APPROPRIATION AND GENERAL INFORMATION APPLICABLE TO THE CONTRACT AWARD.

THE CONTRACT SCHEDULE SET FORTH IN SECTION B THROUGH H, HEREIN, CONTAINS CONTRACTUAL INFORMATION PERTINENT TO THIS SOLICITION. IT IS NOT AN EXACT REPRESENTATION OF THE CONTRACT DOCUMENT THAT WILL BE AWARDED AS A RESULT OF THIS SOLICITATION. THE CONTRACT COST OR PRICE AND OTHER CONTRACTUAL PROVISIONS PERTINENT TO THE OFFEROR WILL BE DISCUSSED IN THE NEGOTIATION PROCESS AND WILL BE INCLUDED IN THE RESULTANT CONTRACT. THE ENCLOSED CONTRACT SCHEDULE IS INTENDED TO PROVIDE THE OFFEROR WITH THE NECESSARY INFORMATION TO UNDERSTAND THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE RESULTANT CONTRACT.

CHAPTER B – CONTINUATION OF SF 26

SECTION A – EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

A.1. TYPE OF CONTRACT

The National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) intends to award a single Fixed-Price contract from this solicitation for commercial services under Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Part 12 and Part 15.

A.2. CONTRACT TERM

The period of performance of the contract shall not exceed Sixty (60) months. There will be a 12-month Base Period plus four (4) 12-month option periods that the government (NIMHD) shall have the unilateral right to exercise upon its determination of need and availability of funds. It shall also be understood that, in accordance with federal appropriations, in the event there is adequate funding to support an entire 12-month contract period that the contractor/vendor and government shall bilaterally modify the subsequent period of performance prior to the government unilaterally exercising the option period. As part of each performance period there will be an Option to Increase Quantities but shall not extend beyond the performance period of the respective option period. The total contract performance period shall not exceed six (6) months following the expiration of the contract in accordance with FAR Clause 52.216, incorporated by reference in Chapter B, Part 1.

A.3. CONTRACT COVERAGE

The purpose of the resulting contract is for a contractor to provide support services to the U.S. Burden Of Health Disparities Working Group to produce scientific knowledge and publications, build scientific capacity, and disseminate data resources and tools for minority and health disparities research.

The support/services shall be expected in the following related Technical Categories (TC):

TC #1: Produce county-level burden of disease estimates by race/ethnicity, sex, education, and age for all U.S. Counties

TC #2: Transition/Phase Out Plan

(End of Part I, Section A)

SECTION B - SUPPLIES OR SERVICES AND PRICES/COSTS

ARTICLE B.1. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF SUPPLIES OR SERVICES

The Contractor shall provide support services to the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group, consisting of representatives from the NIMHD DIR, NHLBI Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science, NIA Division of Behavioral and Social Research, NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, and NIH Office of Disease Prevention, in an effort to produce scientific knowledge and publications, build scientific capacity, and disseminate data resources and tools for minority and health disparities research.

The Vendor shall work independently, and not as an agent of the Government to furnish services, qualified personnel, material, equipment, and facilities not otherwise provided by the Government as described in Section C of the solicitation.

ARTICLE B.2. PRICES/COSTS

a. The resultant contract will be a Fixed-Price contract as contemplated by FAR 16.2. The total fixed price for the Base Year is $ . In the event the subsequent option periods are exercised; the total fixed price of this contract will be $____________________.

b. Upon delivery and acceptance of the item(s) described in SECTION C of this Contract and identified in the schedule of charges below, the Government will pay to the Contractor the unit price(s) set forth below:

SCHEDULE OF CHARGES FOR BASE YEAR 3/25/2023 – 3/24/2024

DESCRIPTION OF TECHNICAL CATEGORY HOURS

(TIME)

PRICE/

COST

TC 1: Produce County-Level Burden of Disease Estimates by Race-Ethnicity, Sex, Education, and Age for all U.S. Counties

TC 2: Transition/Phase Out Plan Other Direct Costs (ODCs)

TOTAL

c. The contractor will not exceed the Base Year amount of $ without the

Government’s prior review and execution of a subsequent modification, in doing so without consent will be at the risk of the contractor. It is understood that this amount will cover the Base Period of performance of ____________________ through ______________________.

d. The Contractor will not unilaterally reallocate hours and funds between Technical Categories without submitting a written request for a Contracting Officer’s Authorization (COA). Upon receipt of the Contracting Officer’s consent, the Contractor shall reallocate accordingly.

ARTICLE B.3. OPTION YEAR/PERIOD PRICES

a. Unless the Government exercises its option pursuant to the option clause referenced in ARTICLE I.3.

ADDITIONAL CONTRACT CLAUSES, this contract consists only of the Base Year specified in the Statement of Work as defined in SECTIONS C and F, for the price set forth in ARTICLE B.2.of this contract.

b. Pursuant to FAR Clause 52.217-6/Option for Increased Quantity/FAR Clause 52.217-7/Option for Increased Quantity-Separately Priced Line Item/FAR Clause 52.217-8/Option to Extend Services/FAR Clause 52.217-9/Option to Extend set forth in ARTICLE I.1. ADDITIONAL CONTRACT CLAUSES of this contract, the Government may, by unilateral contract modification, require the Contractor to perform the Option Period(s) specified in the Statement of Work as defined in SECTIONS C and F of this contract. If the Government exercises this/these option(s), notice must be given before the expiration date of the contract. Specific information regarding the time frame for this notice is set forth in the OPTION PROVISION Article in SECTION H of this contract. The fixed price of this contract will be increased as set forth in paragraph c., below.

c. Upon the delivery and acceptance of the Option Item/Option Items/Option Service/Option Services of the contract and identified in the schedule of charges below, the Government will pay the Contractor.

SCHEDULE OF QUANTITIES AND CHARGES FOR FUTURE OPTION PERIODS

OPTION

PERIOD

PERIOD OF

PERFORMANCE

MINIMUM

AMOUNT

OPTION TO

INCREASE

QUANTITIES

MAXIMUM

AMOUNT

Option Year #1 3/25/2024 – 3/24/2025 Option Year #2 3/25/2025 – 3/24/2026 Option Year #3 3/25/2026 – 3/24/2027 Option Year #4 3/25/2027 – 3/25/2028

TOTAL

(End of Part I, Section B)

SECTION C – TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

ARTICLE C.1. DESCRIPTION, SPECIFICATIONS, WORK STATEMENT

Independently and not as an agent of the Government, the Contractor shall furnish all the necessary services, qualified personnel, material, equipment, and facilities, not otherwise provided by the Government as needed to perform the Statement of Work below:

I. BACKGROUND and INTRODUCTION

Health and disease burden in the U.S. vary widely by population characteristics and geographic area. Routine monitoring of these differences by population groups and area can aid public health planning and policy efforts that aim to reduce health inequities. Although reports on the distribution of diseases and risk factors exist by race-ethnicity, sex, education, percent of poverty level, and age (e.g., the National Center for Health Statistics Health, United States 2016 report), they are limited. Limitations include that the estimates provided are for the nation as a whole, rather than at the county-level, often include only Black-White comparisons, and report out using very simple measures of socioeconomic status. Furthermore, their scope is limited to a small set of diseases, injuries and risk factors, thus they do not report on a comprehensive set of burden of disease measures. Although these programs publish general reports, they do not generate detailed and unique analyses required to obtain an in-depth understanding of health disparities in the U.S. based on race-ethnicity, sex, education, age and county.

Valuable relatively untapped sources of data about diseases, injuries, risk factors and deaths exist in various surveys and population health monitoring systems that are in the public domain or can be purchased, such as the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), and data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the Agency for Health Care Research and Quality (AHRQ), and other government and proprietary health care programs. However, these data sources are fragmented, therefore the potential for mining linked datasets to explore a broad set of risk factors and health outcomes has not been well-harnessed. These health data can be linked with other data sources, e.g., U.S. Census Bureau data to generate detailed epidemiologic data for diverse and vulnerable U.S. population groups.

Through this project, the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group at NIH has been working for three years with the University of Washington Institute on Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) to apply top notch science, supercomputing capacity, and cutting-edge analytic methods to produce high-caliber estimates of life expectancy by age, sex, education, and race-ethnicity at the county-level. The analytic results and data sources are being added to IHME’s data management and visualization platform developed for the Global Burden of Disease (GBD) study, the most comprehensive effort to measure epidemiologic indicators and trends across time and geography. Using the GBD platform and infrastructure, the Contractor has been making the data sources and tools developed under the current contract publicly available as they are developed. The work has required new methods development, careful scrutiny of a range of data, and iterations of analyses to finalize a subset of key results.

To date, the project has focused on generating mortality estimates, while also resolving a large number of questions fundamental to the analyses overall and performing in-depth analyses to improve our understanding of the relevant data and data gaps. IHME has benefitted from ongoing consultations with the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group, the group that is charged with project oversight. This group has met with IHME on a monthly basis to review and critique results, understand the key areas of interest, identify analytic strategies, assess existing methods and approaches, and evaluate available information and data. The evidence produced to date has health policy relevance at national, state, and local levels, but there is much more that can be accomplished through this collaborative project that would serve to inform efforts to reduce persistent health disparities in the U.S.

The National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities Division of Intramural Research (NIMHD DIR) plans and directs the Institute’s clinical, behavioral, and population intramural research programs. Our research seeks to understand mechanisms that produce and contribute to health disparities, develop socio-behavioral interventions to reduce these disparities, and promote the health and well-being of racial/ethnic minority populations. Furthermore, the NIMHD DIR analyzes research efforts and impact to establish intramural research program priorities;

collaborates with and coordinates intramural research on minority health and health disparities conducted by the Institutes and Centers to raise awareness of health disparities research;

advises the Institute Director and staff on matters of scientific interest to the Institute; and assists with development of the Institute’s Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Strategic Plan and its implementation.

To inform and help prioritize NIH, NIMHD and NIMHD DIR efforts in the areas above, we require in-depth analyses and understanding of health disparities in the U.S. that occur on the basis of race-ethnicity, sex, SES, age and location. These analyses require access to and synchronization of numerous sources of data, and epidemiologic, statistical, computer programming, data mining, data visualization expertise and tools that far exceed the scope of the NIMHD DIR. The NIMHD DIR will continue to work collaboratively on this project with the Contractor and other NIH entities including the NHLBI Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science, NIA Division of Behavioral and Social Research, NIH Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, and NIH Office of Disease Prevention.

II. SCOPE

The overall goal of this project is to produce scientific knowledge and publications, build scientific capacity, and disseminate data resources and tools for minority and health disparities research. We will continue to build on an existing public platform to advance the estimation and dissemination of scientific knowledge on the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities by Race- Ethnicity, Sex, Age, Socioeconomic Status and Geography. This project will continue to produce publications that provide valid, accurate, and useful data summaries on the descriptive epidemiology of health disparities in the U.S. The project entails producing detailed county-level estimates of disease burden stratified by race-ethnicity, education, age, and sex for a vast array of diseases, injuries and risk factors. Publications would report on a broad set of measures of the burden of disease (e.g., disability-adjusted life years and healthy life expectancy). This project is building capacity to conduct minority health and health disparities research by adding downloadable data and visualization tools for extracting information on these stratified analyses at the county-level for all U.S. counties. This project will continue to generate publicly available datasets with documentation for these highly specialized analyses for intramural and extramural researchers for studies of health disparities in the U.S. based on race-ethnicity, sex, education, age, and county.

NIMHD seeks to continue the collaboration with IHME to assist the NIH U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group, consisting of representatives from the NIMHD DIR, NHLBI Center for Translation Research and Implementation Science and the Minority Health and Health Disparities Population Laboratory, NIA Division of Behavioral and Social Research, Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research, and Office of Disease Prevention. The purpose of this acquisition is to obtain support services needed for this effort. The requirement consists of the following general tasks:

1) Epidemiological research support on how diseases, injuries and risk factors are distributed in the U.S. by race-ethnicity, sex, age, education, and county;

2) Biostatistical consultation, including advanced Bayesian statistical modeling, small area estimation;

3) Computational approaches and public platform that allows for simultaneous estimation of the burden of disease at the county level by race-ethnicity, sex, and education for all U.S. counties and that yields robust and valid models/estimates with data visualization tools;

4) Ability to achieve out of sample predictive validity for specific racial-ethnic groups for smaller areas where data are sparse;

5) Data management, linkage, and processing, file documentation and reports;

6) Development of technical reports for heath disparities researchers on use of the data resources developed under this contract;

7) Epidemiological methods, biostatistics, graphic data displays, technical/scientific editor, administrator, generation of scientific publications, SharePoint support for production of the “U.S. Burden of Health Disparities by Race-ethnicity, Sex, Age, Education, and County” reports and scientific publications.

A. OBJECTIVE

The objective of this contract is to: 1) produce U.S. county-level estimates of the burden of disease stratified by race-ethnicity, SES, sex, and age.

This project will assist NIH with the identification of potential mechanisms of health disparities, prevention research targets, geographic hot spots of health disparities, potential interventions to reduce disparities, and methodological and data challenges in producing detailed estimates of burden of disease by race-ethnicity, sex, education, age, and county. Ultimately, the project aims to routinely generate and maintain these burden of disease estimates to inform national and local efforts to improve minority health and reduce health disparities. It would be useful and in the public’s interest to produce transparent datasets, data annotation, and visualization tools, with supporting documentation and training that would enable intramural and extramural researchers to conduct further analyses to advance our scientific knowledge with respect to the drivers of health disparities, premature mortality, and disease burden for specific subpopulations and regions of the U.S.

Objective: Produce U.S. county-level estimates of the burden of disease stratified by race-ethnicity, education, sex, and age updated with new GBD U.S. estimates

The Contractor will work collaboratively with the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group to produce and update U.S. county-level estimates of the burden of disease stratified by race-ethnicity, education, sex, and age. NIMHD-DIR seeks to produce and update scientific evidence on the state of the U.S. burden of disease, providing detailed assessments of patterns of health status indicators and risk factors by race-ethnicity, sex, education, age and county, with a public platform for downloading the data and data visualizations. Estimates will be produced for all U.S. counties except where masked to protect confidentiality (in 2016, there were 3,142 counties/county equivalents in the 50 states and District of Columbia). Estimates to be produced by race-ethnicity will focus on all-cause and cause-specific mortality, non-fatal outcomes, and risk factors. Burden of disease measures will include: prevalence, incidence, mortality, life expectancy, healthy life expectancy (HALE), years of life lost (YLLs) due to premature mortality, years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) for a comprehensive array of diseases, injuries and risk factors (behavioral, environmental, occupational, and metabolic) to the extent that existing data sources can provide robust estimates for the populations and geographical units specified. Products of these analyses will include multiple peer-reviewed publications and reports that will draw attention to health disparities in the U.S. and suggest areas that are in critical need of further studies to elucidate mechanisms of action producing such disparities and effective interventions to prevent or reduce them. A public platform for downloading data and data visualization tools to advance studies of health disparities is required. These estimates would be incorporated into the GBD platform to make them available to the public and for use by other researchers.

B. TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

The Contractor shall:

• Independently, and not as an agent of the Government, furnish all the necessary services, qualified personnel, material, and facilities not otherwise provided by the Government, as needed to perform the specific tasks outlined below

• Have an understanding of Federal Government policies and procedures and demonstrated ability to meet fast turnaround deadlines

• Have an understanding of Federal Government contracting and billing processes along with experience in cost control management

• Have prior experience working with the Federal Government

• Complete Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)

• Have extensive experience in oral and written communication and documentation

C. SPECIFIC TASKS TO BE PERFORMED

TASK PERFORMANCE

Performance of work shall involve providing services in support of the original epidemiologic research, which is analytical or descriptive of a defined population such as that of the adult population of the United States. This includes:

1) assessment and analysis of data files in the context of contemporary knowledge about these diseases, deaths, injuries, and risk factors;

2) preparation of detailed written technical reports and scientific publications on scientific analyses arising from the data files that would be suitable for publication in the peer-reviewed medical literature, including discussion of the pertinent published literature and scientific assessment of analysis results as they relate to current knowledge of diseases, deaths, injuries, and risk factors;

3) epidemiologic and statistical consultation in assessment and analysis of a variety of sources of data on diseases, injuries, and risk factors.

Data sources include particularly complex data files derived from surveys of the National Center for Health Statistics, Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance Survey, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, U.S. Census files, and other appropriate data files relating to the objectives. Robust methods are required for data linkage, cross-walking of variables, and data harmonization. The work shall be performed in collaboration with scientists of the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group.

Analyses will include conducting a wide range of descriptive and inferential epidemiologic and statistical analyses; Bayesian modeling to generate estimates;

provision of biostatistician support in determining the scientific and technical feasibility of specific proposed analyses, considering such factors as complex survey design, sample size, missing data, discrepancies in coding of variables across data sources, etc.; selection of appropriate statistical analytic methods for specific analyses;

performing statistical tests of analyses to determine significance of results; testing the validity of modeling results at the county and census-tract levels; and refinement of existing SAS or other appropriate statistical packages and programs such as Python, SAS, SUDAAN or STATA or Geographical Information Systems procedures to perform innovative analyses or to develop other programs not available in standard software packages. Data management and data processing support will include the analysis of complex biomedical datasets; procuring and maintaining complex data files from epidemiologic surveys and other data sources; development and maintenance and documentation of computer files; merging files and developing specialized working sub files; statistical computer-based analyses; and preparation of technical reports containing details of files procured, new files developed, and file management.

Epidemiological, biostatistician, data management/processing, and project management support will be required for the production of scientific publications and reports related to the burden of health disparities in the U.S. Activities will include authorship and editorial responsibilities, and provision of both tabulated and graphically displayed national health data by race-ethnicity, sex, education, age and county. Such support may also be needed for certain data from community/regional surveys.

Technical editing requiring a high level of knowledge of health disparities research will be required for review of drafts. Administrative support will be needed for arranging conference calls, contacting authors, writing conference call minutes, and tracking progress on the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities scientific publications and other products. Reports and manuscripts shall be word processed, requiring graphic support and Section 508 compliance for tables and figures. The U.S. Burden of Health Disparities by Race-ethnicity, Sex, Age, Education and County annual reports shall be posted on the NIMHD website and available as a pdf document. A SharePoint site or other repository shall be maintained and updated as reports, manuscripts, and other scientific materials are developed.

Key Personnel

The Contractor shall identify at least the following key personnel:

• Epidemiologists

• Biostatisticians

• Project Manager

DETAILED TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS OF TASKS TO BE PERFORMED

The following tasks are required to generate datasets and estimates for the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities by Race-ethnicity, Sex, Age, Education. and County reports and peer-reviewed scientific publications, data platforms and data visualization tools. Tasks may be modified in collaborations between the Contractor and the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group depending on the feasibility of obtaining the required data sources, time and effort required to model the estimates by the population groups requested, and financial considerations. For all tasks identified below, the Contractor shall collaborate with U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group scientists in conducting original scientific research relating to health disparities in the U.S. using large, complex surveys and data files provided to the Contractor or procured by the Contractor.

Performance of work shall involve providing support in the conduct of original epidemiologic research, which is analytical or descriptive of a defined population such as that of the adult population of the United States, on the epidemiology, determinants, and sequelae of the various diseases, injuries and risk factors. These studies may investigate etiologic risk factors and relationships; the sociodemographic distribution of the diseases and conditions;

social determinants of health, and a variety of outcomes of diseases and public health impact.

TASK 1: Produce Estimates of All-Cause and Cause-Specific Mortality by Race- Ethnicity and County Updated with New U.S. Estimates based on the Global Burden of Disease Methodology

This task builds on and is a continuation of the production of the core evidence generated to date in the first 3-year contract. The Contractor shall continuously update data and estimates for more recent years to build a publicly available time series database from 2020-present. These time-series data will be optimized to allow for examining mortality estimates within and across time periods, as well as trends and changes over time. The indicators produced would include estimates of population counts (denominator data), all-cause mortality, deaths by cause, and key covariates by race-ethnicity, age, sex, education, and county. A significant improvement that is required is to update race-ethnicity groups from the 1977 standard used in the current analyses to be timely, relevant, useful for intervention planning, and inclusive, disaggregation of major Office of Management and Budget (OMB) defined populations, as data quality permits.

Further refinements of covariate models, estimation methods, and estimates are expected. The Contractor shall also continue to provide validation of cause-specific models and improvements in calibration approaches. Finally, special attention will be given to improving causes of death estimates for causes where the underlying death certificate data are known to be problematic, for example, maternal causes and dementia.

TASK 2: Produce Cause-Specific Estimates of Non-Fatal Health Outcomes by Race- Ethnicity and County

To date, the Contractor has completed preliminary work on non-fatal outcomes that has included establishing the infrastructure to estimate years lived with disability (YLDs) from years of life lost due to premature mortality (YLLs) for specific diseases and injuries. Initial assessments of the utility of clinical data for estimating healthy life expectancy (HALE) have been conducted.

For this requirement, the Contractor shall provide continuation of these efforts which require activities focused on refinement of methods, exploration, execution, and validation of model results for producing a robust set of estimates. New methods development is required. Thus, this requirement will involve extension of these complex efforts to produce estimates of non-fatal outcomes by race-ethnicity, age, sex, education, and county for 2020-present. Renewed efforts to find all relevant data sources and to maximize the ability to map data available from clinical sources (e.g., data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, and American Hospital Association) will be a critical focus area. Securing additional datasets on relevant covariates, some specific to individual causes, will likely be required and generating time series for them will require model development as well. The Contractor shall be required to produce results for at least the top 50 causes of non-fatal burden, with the aim of producing estimates for the full set of Global Burden of Disease causes for which there is substantial burden and health disparities in the U.S.

TASK 3. Produce Estimates of Risk Factors by Race-Ethnicity and County

Under the current contract, the Contractor has been finalizing estimates for the risk factor of high body mass index (BMI) and will continue under the new requirement to add new years of data to extend this time series. Additionally, the Contractor shall identify up to 10 additional risk factors that are associated with health disparities and produce compelling estimates by race-ethnicity at the county level with available evidence and develop and validate new estimation methods. The appropriate risk factors to be included will be identified in consultation with the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group.

TASK 4: Preparation and Submission of Scientific Peer-Reviewed Manuscripts

The Contractor shall generate peer-reviewed journal articles that cover the breadth of health outcomes, conditions, and risk factors addressed by this project. Manuscripts shall be written and submitted with the collaboration and active participation of the NIH U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group. For this task, the Contractor shall provide key support in the areas of manuscript formulation, data visualization, editorial assistance, and production which would enhance our ability to develop and submit manuscripts in a timely fashion to maximize the scientific impact of this project.

Specific papers to be developed will fall thematically into several health disparities and minority health related categories including:

• Methodological advancements;

• Disease- and risk-specific findings;

• Mechanisms of health disparities;

• Findings that could inform national, state, and local efforts to ameliorate health disparities by race-ethnicity and the negative impacts of social determinants of health.

TASK 5: Project Management and Administration

a. Contract Management

The Contractor shall:

• Provide for the overall management, integration and coordination of all contract activities, including the management and coordination of activities carried out under subcontracts;

• Provide a technical and administrative infrastructure to ensure the efficient planning, initiation, implementation and timely completion of all projects carried out under this contract and effective communications with the COR and CO;

• Provide for Project Manager with responsibility for overall project management and communications, tracking, monitoring and reporting on project status and progress, and recommending modifications to project requirements and timelines, including projects undertaken by subcontractors.

b. Meetings

Kickoff Meeting: Within 10 days of award of the contract, participate in a one-day Contract Initiation Meeting with the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR), CO (Contracting Officer) and other NIMHD personnel designated by the COR, to be held at the Government site or by web conferencing. The purpose of the Contract Initiation Meeting shall be to orient the Contractor to NIMHD contract procedures.

Monthly Meetings/Teleconferences: The Project Manager shall work with the epidemiologists and biostatisticians to provide monthly presentations to the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group of ongoing analyses, which may result in continuing as planned, changing, expanding, new analyses, or discontinuation. The Contractor shall meet with the NIMHD COR and Program staff to discuss and review active/completed assignments, quality control issues, delivery schedules, and costs/budget matters (with CO) as necessary. At a minimum, meetings shall include the Project Manager (or equivalent labor category).

c. Management Plan

The Contractor shall develop a proposed Management Plan for the conduct of the program.

This plan shall outline the Contractor’s approach and procedures for the following areas:

• Project Management

• Project Organization

• Schedule and Budget Adherence

• Reporting

• Staffing and Staff Retention

At a minimum, the Contractor shall:

• Maintain close communication with NIMHD COR in monitoring all technical categories;

• Supervise and coordinate project staff and consultants;

• Maintain control of the budget for all tasks and notifying the COR and CO when the budget has reached 75% of the funding limit during each period of performance;

• Assure that data on the budget and progress of all activity is tracked separately and is available in scheduled reports;

• Submit resumes for replacement of key personnel to the COR and CO for review and approval prior to assigning new leadership to technical categories;

• Deliver required reports, plans, and other deliverables that are accurate, error-free, completed within budget, and submitted in accordance with the delivery schedule designated in each technical category;

• Assign staff with appropriate skills and experience for each technical category;

• Document in monthly status reports the steps and estimated time to complete tasks; and

• Organize and archive reports in acceptable electronic formats that can be easily accessible.

d. Administrative Support

The Contractor shall provide administrative support in the following:

• Arranging conference calls;

• Contacting authors via email and telephone;

• Writing conference call minutes for tracking of manuscripts and progress toward the tasks. Manuscripts shall be word processed requiring graphic support and Section 508 compliance for tables and figures. Annual reports shall be published on the NIMHD website and potentially in the form of a hardcopy book and/or digital format. The current SharePoint site or other repository for documents shall be maintained and updated as chapters and other project materials are developed.

This project will result in multiple peer-reviewed scientific publications in relevant scientific journals. If submitted for peer review at a scientific journal, the project manager shall be responsible for working with the contractor epidemiologists and biostatisticians to address the concerns and questions of peer reviewers and editors and for resubmission of the manuscript.

Upon acceptance of a manuscript, the Contractor shall be responsible for line-by-line examination of the manuscript proofs and addressing editor and reviewer queries. The Contractor shall be responsible for providing electronic copies of the published paper to scientists and health care professionals who request reprints.

TECHNICAL CATEGORY 1: PRODUCE COUNTY-LEVEL BURDEN OF DISEASE

ESTIMATES BY RACE/ETHNICITY, SEX, EDUCATION, AND AGE FOR ALL U.S.

COUNTIES.

Produce county-level estimates for all U.S. counties of the prevalence, incidence, mortality, life expectancy, healthy life expectancy (HALE), years of life lost (YLLs) due to premature mortality, years lived with disability (YLDs), and disability-adjusted life-years (DALYs) by race-ethnicity, sex, education, age and county for a comprehensive array of diseases, injuries and risk factors (behavioral, environmental, occupational, and metabolic) to the extent that existing data sources can provide robust and sound estimates for the subpopulations and geographical units specified. Maintain public platform for downloading of data and data visualizations. The county-level estimates should be produced for as many diseases, injuries and risk factors as feasible given available data sources.

The Government will have the option to increase quantities/hours if additional support is needed for (e.g.

the number of manuscripts and associated tables, figures and maps, technical assistance workshops) in Option Years 1-4. This would allow the project to accommodate requests from NIH ICOs for: 1) specific analyses and data visualizations for manuscripts that align with their missions; 2) US Burden of Health Disparities Working Group requests for regional comparisons of high vs. low health disparity areas; and 3) technical assistance to NIH-funded investigators on using the data and visualization tools generated under this contract. All of these options would utilize the data sources, estimates, and data visualization tools generated under this contract.

TECHNICAL CATEGORY 1 – DELIVERABLES:

1. Monthly Project Progress Report:

a. One electronic copy each shall be delivered to the Contracting Officer (CO) and the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

1. The report shall explain the status of contracted work in progress for the month covered, addressing problems encountered and resolutions, including a detailed description of limitations due to the lack of appropriate data sources and methodological approaches for dealing with these. The report shall describe, by technical category, the project’s progress during the preceding month; problems encountered and proposed solutions; initiatives scheduled; and an accounting of costs by technical category. The report shall cover an entire month. First report shall be due 15 days after the reporting period, i.e., on the 15th day of the following month.

2. First report shall be due 15 days after the reporting period, i.e., on the 15th day of the following month.

2. Annual Project Progress Report

b. One electronic copy each shall be delivered to the Contracting Officer (CO) and the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

3. The report shall explain the status and primary findings to date of contracted work in progress for the entire performance period covered, addressing problems encountered and resolutions, including a detailed description of limitations due to the lack of appropriate data sources and methodological approaches for dealing with these. The report shall cover 12 full calendar months.

4. The first report shall be due on the 15th day of the month following the period of performance being reported. An annual report shall not be required when the Final Report is due.

3. Final Project Report

c. One electronic copy each shall be delivered to the Contracting Officer (CO) and the Contracting Officer’s Representative (COR).

5. The report shall describe contracted work performed, from the contract award effective date to expiration date. Problems encountered and resolved shall be described, including major limitations due to the lack of appropriate data sources and methodological approaches for dealing with these. The report shall also include an inventory of publications.

6. The final report shall be due no later than the contract expiration date.

4. U.S. Burden of Health Disparities by Race/Ethnicity, Sex, Age, Education, and County related scientific publications, and public platform for downloading data and data visualizations.

7. Provide a comprehensive written and electronic report describing county-level burden of disease estimates for the U.S. stratified by race/ethnicity, sex, socioeconomic status (SES), and age, due by the end of the second contract year. The Contractor shall submit scientific findings from all analyses performed, including individual analytic results and summaries of these results; analysis and discussion of the published literature pertinent to the analysis subject; and scientific assessment and possible interpretations of the meaning and significance of the results as they pertain to current knowledge about the topic. Such reports must be suitable for publication in the biomedical literature.

8. Produce publicly available web-based data download tools and tools to obtain reviews of the results with data visualization, by the end of the third contract year.

9. In collaboration with the U.S. Burden of Health Disparities Working Group scientists, produce and submit for peer-reviewed publication at least 15-20 manuscripts over the 5-year period. The contractor epidemiologists shall draft manuscripts and other reports for review by the supervising NIH staff members. Manuscripts and reports may require several rounds of editing and further data analyses before they are complete.

10. The U.S. Burden of Health Disparities by Race/Ethnicity, Sex, Age, Education, and County manuscripts shall be due no later than the contract expiration date.

TECHNICAL CATEGORY 2: TRANSITION/PHASE OUT PLAN

IN THE EVENT THE GOVERNMENT RE-COMPETES THE REQUIREMENTS OF

THIS SOW AND PRIOR TO COMPLETION OF THIS CONTRACT'S PERIOD OF

PERFORMANCE, THE CONTRACTOR SHALL, AT THE GOVERNMENT'S OPTION,

PROVIDE THE GOVERNMENT WITH A PHASE-OUT PLAN THAT SHALL ENSURE

AN ORDERLY AND SUCCESSFUL TRANSITION OF THE REMAINING TASKS TO

A SUCCESSOR CONTRACTOR SHOULD THE INCUMBENT CONTRACTOR NOT

BE SELECTED DURING THE RE-COMPETITION. THE CONTRACTOR SHALL

DEVELOP THIS PLAN IN COLLABORATION WITH THE COR. THE PHASE-OUT

PLAN SHALL ADDRESS, IN SPECIFIC TERMS, THE ORDERLY TRANSFER OF

THE FOLLOWING TO THE COR AT THE CONCLUSION OF THE CONTRACT

PERIOD, WITHIN TWO WEEKS OF CONTRACT END:

• Participate in a formal transfer of responsibilities to the Government and/or to

Successor;

• Carry on operations at appropriate staffing levels until the designated transition period has ended;

• Relinquish specific tasks during the transition period, at the request of the COR and CO;

• Support knowledge exchange activities to include answering questions, provide access to documentation, and brief the Government and Successor on the status of work not completed;

• Transfer to the Government all Government Furnished Information (GFI) relevant to the tasks performed under the contract;

• Transfer all electronic and physical files—including reference files, working files/drafts, inquiry responses and response database/data, writers’ files, graphic/desktop publishing files publications, electronic data sets, statistical programs, and other materials;

• Transfer all software programs developed and all datasets purchased for which contract funds were expended as well as full documentation pertaining to the programs or datasets.

ARTICLE C.2. REPORTING REQUIREMENTS/DELIVERABLES

As a result of this contract, all reports required herein shall be submitted in electronic format via the NICHD Contracts Portal at the following website: https://contracts.nichd.nih.gov. All electronic reports submitted shall be compliant with Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. Additional information about testing documents for Section 508 compliance, including guidance and specific checklists, by application, can be found at: http://www.hhs.gov/web/508/index.html under “Making Files Accessible. The Contractor must provide to the Contracting Officer/Contract Specialist the name of the person(s) submitting electronic reports via the NICHD Contracts Portal in order to initiate access to the Portal.

Unless otherwise specified, the Government will have a maximum of ten (10) working days from the day the draft deliverable is received to review the document, provide https://contracts.nichd.nih.gov/ http://www.hhs.gov/web/508/index.html comments back to the contractor, approve or disapprove the deliverable(s). The contractor will also have a maximum of ten (10) working days from the day comments are received to incorporate all changes and submit the final deliverable to the Government. All days identified below are intended to be workdays unless otherwise specified. The Contractor will utilize the Tables of Deliverables shown below to develop, execute and maintain timely submission of all deliverables as required by this contract. The Deliverables Schedule will be used by the NIMHD COR and Contractor to monitor timely progress under this contract.

DELIVERABLES

Deliverables shall be made in accordance with the following table. Deliverables shall be developed and delivered in a timely manner for Government review of drafts and in final formats designated.

(End of Part I, Section C)

Deliverable Due Date Submit To 1 Kickoff Meeting Within 10 days of award 2 Management Plan 15 days from Time of Award NICHD Contract Portal 3 Monthly Project Progress Report 15th of the Month NICHD Contract Portal 4 Annual Project Progress Report 15th day at end of each period of performance NICHD Contract Portal

5 Final Report At conclusion of the contract NICHD Contract Portal 6 US Burden of Health Disparities

Comprehensive Report No later than the end date of contract

NICHD Contract Portal

7 Transition/Phase Out Plan Phase Out – 90 days prior to end of contract

NICHD Contract Portal

SECTION D – PACKING, PACKAGING, AND MARKING

ARTICLE D.1. PACKING, PACKAGING, AND MARKING

(a) Products shall be packaged, packed, and marked in accordance with the Contractor’s standard commercial practices. The Contractor is fully liable for all damage, deterioration, or losses incurred during shipment and handling, unless the damage, deterioration, or losses are due to the fault of the Government.

(b) All initial packing, marking and storage incidental to shipping of equipment to be provided under this contract shall be at the Contractor’s expense. The Contractor shall supervise the packing of all acquired equipment furnished by the Contractor and shall supervise the unpacking of equipment to be installed.

(c) All deliverables submitted to the CO and COR shall be accompanied by a packing list or other suitable shipping document that shall clearly indicate the following:

1. Contract number;

2. Contract number;

3. Name and address of the consignor;

4. Name and address of the consignee;

5. Government bill of lading number covering the shipment (if any); and

6. Description of the item/material shipped, including item number, quantity, number of containers, and package number (if any).

(d) Specific marking requirements may be addressed in the contract.

(End of Part I, Section D)

SECTION E - INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE

E.1. INSPECTION AND ACCEPTANCE

(a) Final acceptance of all deliverables and or services performed as specified under each assignment will be made in writing, at destination by the COR, or as detailed in individual assignments.

(b) For payment purposes, inspection and acceptance of all commodity deliverables will be deemed to have been performed within 30 days of receipt of shipment documentation or other confirmation of receipt of delivery by the ordering entity.

E.2. PARTIAL DELIVERY AND ACCEPTANCE

Partial deliveries will be allowed solely at the discretion of the Government. In the event the Government determines that partial deliveries are allowable, the contract must so state. If the Contractor is granted partial shipment authorization, the original packing slip shall clearly identify those items not shipped. The balance of the contract shall also be made via packing slip(s) and shall clearly indicate that this shipment(s) constitutes the balance of the original contract.

E.3. SCOPE OF INSPECTION

All deliverables will be inspected for content, completeness, accuracy, and conformance to contract requirements by the COR, or as detailed in the contract. Inspection may include validation of information or software through the use of automated tools and/or testing of the deliverables, as specified in the contract. The scope and nature of this testing must be negotiated prior to award and will be sufficiently comprehensive to ensure the completeness, quality and adequacy of all deliverables.

E.4. BASIS OF ACCEPTANCE

(a) The basis for acceptance shall be in compliance with the requirements set forth in the statement of work, the contract, the Contractor's proposal and other terms and conditions of this contract. Deliverable items rejected under the resulting contract shall be corrected in accordance with the applicable clauses.

(b) Commercial and non-developmental hardware items, software items, pre-packaged solutions, and maintenance and support solutions will be accepted within thirty (30) calendar days of delivery when performance is in accordance with delivery requirements.

(c) Custom services such as travel and Other Direct Costs (ODCs) will be accepted upon receipt of proper documentation as specified in the contract. If custom services are provided as part of a FFP contract, acceptance will be as specified for the milestone with which they are associated. If custom services are for software development, the final acceptance of the software program will occur when all discrepancies, errors or other deficiencies identified in writing by the Government have been resolved, either through documentation updates, program correction, or other mutually agreeable methods.

(d) Reports, documents and narrative type deliverables will be accepted when all discrepancies, errors or other deficiencies identified in writing by the Government have been corrected.

(e) Non-conforming products or services will be rejected.