The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and the National Institutes of Health (NIH), is forecasting a limited competition funding opportunity announcement to continue supporting research sites within the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA). Originally launched in 2012, NCANDA was designed to understand the effects of adolescent alcohol exposure on brain development and subsequent adult brain function and psychiatric outcomes.
NCANDA employs an accelerated longitudinal design and has collected comprehensive data on over 800 participants aged between 12 and 32 years. This cohort allows researchers to study pre-drinking developmental baselines through to the transitional period into adulthood, including peak times for binge drinking and the process of maturing out. These data are unique in their ability to illuminate both short-term and long-term consequences of adolescent drinking in a way not possible through adult-only studies.
The planned renewal of this project will allow NCANDA to continue tracking participants through age 37. This extended data collection is intended to further elucidate differences in adult outcomes based on the age of onset of drinking during adolescence. The objective is to support the development of more effective, evidence-based prevention and early intervention strategies that could mitigate progression to alcohol use disorder (AUD) and associated chronic diseases, thus improving long-term health outcomes and quality of life.
This notice serves only as a forecast, with no applications being solicited at this time. It is issued to provide potential applicants with time to form collaborations and prepare responsive projects. The funding mechanism will be a cooperative agreement (U01), and applications will be limited to existing NCANDA research project sites.
The estimated publication date for the funding announcement is May 1, 2026, with an application due date of August 1, 2026. Awards are expected to be made by July 1, 2027, with the project start date also targeted for July 1, 2027. The estimated total funding available for this program is $5,000,000, distributed across an expected seven awards.
For more information, interested parties can contact Dominique Lorang-Leins at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism via phone at 301-594-6228 or email at Lorangd@mail.nih.gov.
