National Science Foundation's Smart Health and Wellbeing Program

by: Michael Saunders

The National Science Foundation, otherwise known as NSF, is an independent agency of the United States federal government that is greatly responsible for financing research and education activities in all the non-medical fields of science and engineering.

The efforts of the NSF are always guided by their overall agency mission, which is to "To promote the progress of science; to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national defense."

In line with this, the National Science Foundation has constituted the development of the Smart Health and Wellbeing (SHB) Program wherein they intend to address scientific and technical issues that would pave the way towards the transformation of the healthcare process from being rather reactive and hospital centered into becoming preventive, proactive, evidence-based, patient-centered and focused on the wellbeing of the person rather than his/her disease.

The program seeks to achieve this by addressing issues that are associated with sensor technology, networking, information and machine learning technology, system and process modeling, modeling cognitive process and lastly, social and economic issues.

In this regard, the principal investigators that wish to participate in this program would have to include research studies that address the following concerns:

1) Digital Health Information Infrastructure - This dimension should include techniques and strategies that will potentially enable in interoperable, distributed, federated, and scalable digital infrastructure, languages, and tools for efficient integration and utilization of electronic health record information, as well as networked applications that can access such information.

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National Science Foundation's Smart Health and Wellbeing Program
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About The Author Michael Saunders is an editor of TopGovernmentGrants.com one the the most comprehensive Websites offering information on government grants and federal government programs. He also maintains Websites providing resources on environmental grants and grants for youth programs.

Additional Resources

category - Health Grants

Nutrition Obesity Research Centers Grant Program
In an attempt to support this mission, the National Institutes of Health has formed a partnership with the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK) to establish the Nutrition Obesity Research Centers Grant Program wherein both agencies intend to solicit grant applications that wish to establish core centers which will be an essential part of an integrated program of nutrition and obesity research.

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International Research Collaboration on Drug Abuse and Addiction
The National Institutes of Health, in collaboration with the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), has recently established the International Research Collaboration on Drug Abuse and Addiction Program wherein they seek to solicit collaborative research applications regarding addiction and drug use, through the utilization of special opportunities and resources that exist outside the United States of America.

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Genomic Advances to Wound Repair
The National Institutes of Health has coordinated with the National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) to establish a program called Genomic Advances to Wound Repair in an effort to jump-start research studies that have the potential to deepen the understanding of genomic mechanism associated with the repair and development of wounds that are chronic in nature, which implies that these wounds have failed to enter into a reparative process after three months.

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Basic Research on HIV Persistence Program
In keeping with this mission, the National Institutes of Health has recently constituted the establishment of the Basic Research on HIV Persistence Program in an attempt to increase our understanding of the persistence of HIV-1 infections in patients under highly active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART).

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