Single Source: National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult (Add) Health Wave VII (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) | RFA AG 26 001

Opportunity Information: Apply for RFA AG 26 001

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is offering a single-source cooperative agreement to support Wave VII of the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health). This funding opportunity (RFA-AG-26-001) continues and extends a landmark, nationally representative cohort study that began in 1994-1995 with adolescents in grades 7-12 (roughly ages 12-19). The original participants were primarily born between 1976 and 1982, and they are now reaching midlife, which makes this wave especially important for examining how early-life and life course exposures shape health and functioning as people age. A central emphasis of the opportunity is to leverage this midlife timepoint to better understand risk and resilience factors for Alzheimers disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD), including how these factors contribute to inequities across populations over time.

The grant is structured as a U01 cooperative agreement, which means the NIH expects substantial scientific and programmatic involvement from the agency in addition to the awardee carrying out the work. The notice specifies "Clinical Trial Not Allowed," signaling that the award is intended for observational and data resource activities rather than interventional clinical trials. The project aims to preserve the core elements that have made Add Health valuable for decades, while also strengthening its role as a population-representative platform for studying aging, cognition, and dementia-related outcomes through a life course lens.

Key activities to be supported include continuing the study's mixed-mode survey approach, maintaining the in-home health visit component, conducting venous blood collection, and sustaining the full set of data dissemination activities. In practice, this means the award will fund the infrastructure and operations needed to recontact and assess the cohort, collect questionnaire and health data using multiple collection modes, and gather biologic specimens that can support future biomarker and mechanistic research relevant to aging and AD/ADRD. Just as importantly, it supports the curation, documentation, and distribution of data so that the broader research community can use Add Health to investigate how social, behavioral, environmental, and biological factors interact across decades to influence cognitive aging and dementia risk, including disparities and inequities in outcomes.

Eligibility is limited in specific ways. The opportunity lists public and state-controlled institutions of higher education as eligible applicants. Foreign organizations (non-U.S. entities) are not eligible to apply, and non-domestic components of U.S. organizations are also not eligible to apply. At the same time, the announcement allows foreign components as defined by the NIH Grants Policy Statement, which generally refers to discrete project elements performed outside the U.S. under the direction of a U.S. applicant organization, when well-justified and permitted under NIH policy. This combination of restrictions and allowances matters for teams that collaborate internationally: the applicant organization must be U.S.-based and eligible, and any foreign involvement would need to fit NIH's definition of an allowable foreign component rather than a non-domestic applicant or non-domestic organizational component.

Administratively, this is a discretionary funding opportunity under NIH, using the cooperative agreement funding instrument, with an activity focus in the broad area of education, health, income security, and social services. It is associated with CFDA numbers 93.279, 93.865, and 93.866. The opportunity was created on 2025-06-16, and the original closing date is 2025-10-17. The public summary provided does not list an award ceiling or expected number of awards, but the "single source" framing indicates NIH intends to support one primary awardee to carry out Wave VII, consistent with maintaining continuity and standardization for a long-running national cohort study.

Overall, the purpose of this NOFO is to keep Add Health operating as a high-value national research asset at a pivotal stage in participants' lives, while sharpening its capacity to answer questions about the origins of aging-related outcomes and AD/ADRD risk. By continuing standardized surveys, in-home measurements, biospecimen collection, and robust dissemination, Wave VII is positioned to help researchers connect adolescent and young-adult exposures to midlife health trajectories and later-life dementia vulnerability, including the structural and social drivers that shape unequal risks and outcomes across groups.

• The National Institutes of Health in the education, health, income security and social services sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Single Source: National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult (Add) Health Wave VII (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.279, 93.865, 93.866.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2025-06-16.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-10-17. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Public and State controlled institutions of higher education.

Apply for RFA AG 26 001

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