Delta States Rural Development Network Grant Program | HRSA 20 087

Opportunity Information: Apply for HRSA 20 087

The Delta States Rural Development Network Grant Program (often called the Delta Program) is a federal grant opportunity from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. It is designed to help rural communities in the Mississippi Delta region build and strengthen integrated health care networks that can better meet local health needs and reduce long-standing health disparities. The program is focused on organizations located in eight Delta States: Alabama, Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee. At its core, the opportunity is about helping rural partners work together across a region, rather than operating in isolation, so that communities can improve access to essential services, coordinate care more effectively, improve quality, and make the overall rural health system more resilient and efficient.

A central expectation of the program is collaboration through multi-county or multi-parish projects. Applicants are encouraged to build partnerships that span more than one local jurisdiction, reflecting how patients actually live, work, and seek care across county lines. The emphasis is not just on delivering services, but on planning, implementing, and developing lasting health care networks that can share resources, align strategies, and address gaps in care. HRSA also highlights population health as a major theme, meaning applicants should think beyond one clinic or one site and instead design approaches that improve outcomes for groups of people across a defined service area.

The Delta Program strongly prioritizes efforts that address chronic diseases that disproportionately affect rural Delta communities. Applicants are encouraged to concentrate their proposal on no more than two focus areas to keep the project targeted and measurable. The listed priority focus areas are diabetes, cardiovascular disease, obesity, acute ischemic stroke, and HIV/AIDS. Projects can address prevention, self-management, care coordination, and/or clinical care, but they must be outcomes oriented. In other words, the work should be designed so that changes can be tracked and demonstrated, not simply described as activities completed.

Another major requirement is that funded projects must use an evidence-based or promising practice model. HRSA is looking for approaches that have demonstrated outcomes and could be replicated in other communities. Evidence-based approaches generally mean strategies supported by credible research or established evaluation results. Promising practices can include smaller pilot programs that have shown positive results and are now ready to be expanded to new sites or new populations. The key point is that applicants need to show that the model is grounded in real-world evidence and is expected to produce measurable improvements.

In terms of what outcomes should look like, HRSA expects programs to include activities that produce measurable changes in wellness screening indicators. Examples include body mass index (BMI), weight, A1c (for diabetes control), blood pressure, waist circumference, and HIV testing rates. Beyond clinical screening measures, the program also values improvements in at least one broader domain that influences health outcomes. These domains include knowledge (such as increased understanding of risk factors, prevention, and self-management strategies), attitudes (such as improved confidence or self-efficacy in managing health), behaviors (such as increased physical activity, improved nutrition, or adherence to HIV medications), policies and procedures (such as improved care delivery models or changes to school wellness policies), and systems changes (such as stronger coordination between health care providers and social service organizations). This reflects HRSA's preference for projects that improve both direct health indicators and the underlying conditions that shape long-term health.

HRSA anticipates that awardees will coordinate services related to chronic disease management and consider an integrated care approach. In practice, this means designing care that is more connected across providers and settings, and potentially across multiple chronic conditions rather than treating each condition separately. The grant also encourages recipients to think about sustainability from the start, including exploring reimbursement mechanisms for chronic care management and aligning care management activities with payment approaches that can continue after federal funding ends. This is meant to help projects avoid ending when the grant period closes by building financial and operational pathways to maintain services.

The opportunity also recognizes the overlap between chronic disease and behavioral health. Because people with chronic illnesses are at higher risk for depression and other mental health conditions, applicants are encouraged to include mental health and substance use disorder activities, including opioid use disorder, as part of a more comprehensive care strategy. HRSA frames this as aligned with broader HHS and HRSA clinical priorities, and it reinforces the idea that better outcomes often require addressing physical health, mental health, and substance use together rather than in separate silos.

Finally, the grant includes targeted technical assistance during the project period. HRSA indicates that recipients will receive support intended to help them achieve project outcomes and plan for sustainability, and that this assistance is provided at no additional cost as part of HRSA's investment in the success of funded projects. The funding opportunity is identified as HRSA-20-087, categorized as a discretionary grant within the health activity area (CFDA 93.912). The notice listed an expected 12 awards and an award ceiling of $56,604, with the original application closing date noted as December 6, 2019.

• The Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Delta States Rural Development Network Grant Program" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.912.
• This funding opportunity was created on Aug 27, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Dec 06, 2019. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $56,604.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 12 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for HRSA 20 087

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