Rural Communities Opioid Response Program-Evaluation | HRSA 19 083

Opportunity Information: Apply for HRSA 19 083

The Rural Communities Opioid Response Program-Evaluation (RCORP-Evaluation), funding opportunity number HRSA 19 083, is a discretionary cooperative agreement offered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). Its core aim is not to deliver direct opioid treatment services, but to rigorously evaluate how well the broader RCORP portfolio is working in rural areas and to translate what is learned into practical evaluation tools and resources that rural communities can use going forward. The opportunity is tied to CFDA 93.155 and was posted March 6, 2019 with an original closing date of May 6, 2019.

The program is designed to assess the impact of RCORP initiatives that were already underway at the time, specifically RCORP-Planning, RCORP-Implementation, and RCORP-Technical Assistance (RCORP-TA). In practical terms, the awardee would function as the central evaluator across the RCORP landscape, working with all RCORP award recipients rather than focusing on a single community or region. Because this is a cooperative agreement, it typically implies substantial involvement from HRSA in shaping the evaluation approach, priorities, and deliverables, with the awardee collaborating closely with the agency rather than operating fully independently.

The anticipated work centers on building a structured, evidence-driven understanding of what RCORP-funded efforts are achieving in rural communities and why. Key activities include collecting and analyzing data reported by RCORP award recipients, establishing and applying impact indicators that can measure outcomes and effectiveness, and assessing how well technical assistance supports grantee performance. A major emphasis is placed on defining meaningful indicators that go beyond simple activity counts and instead help explain changes attributable to program strategies, such as improvements in prevention, treatment access, recovery supports, and community capacity, depending on what individual RCORP projects are implementing.

Another major component is identifying and documenting best practices emerging from the RCORP portfolio. This is done in coordination with the RCORP-TA provider, suggesting the evaluator would work alongside the technical assistance entity to determine which approaches are consistently associated with positive results, how those approaches were implemented, and what contextual factors in rural settings helped or hindered success. The evaluator is also expected to use overall findings to surface research gaps and future learning needs, essentially turning on-the-ground program experience into a clearer agenda for what should be studied, tested, or strengthened next in rural opioid response work.

The expected outputs include actionable recommendations to improve current RCORP activities and to inform future rural health initiatives more broadly. In addition to reporting findings, the program explicitly calls for the development of RCORP-based evaluation tools and resources, meaning templates, measurement frameworks, guidance documents, or other practical materials that rural communities can apply to evaluate opioid response efforts even outside of RCORP funding. The overall intent is to ensure that lessons learned from RCORP investments are captured consistently, evaluated with credible methods, and converted into reusable resources that strengthen rural public health and health care responses over time.

Eligibility is listed as "Others" with further clarification referenced in the full notice under additional eligibility information, and the opportunity anticipated a single award. The award ceiling is shown as 0 in the source data provided, which usually indicates that the ceiling was not specified in that field rather than implying no funding, and would typically require checking the full funding notice for the actual budget guidance and expectations.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Rural Communities Opioid Response Program-Evaluation" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.155.
• This funding opportunity was created on Mar 06, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 06, 2019. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 1 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for HRSA 19 083

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